Bulletin  Number  Twelve 


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SCHOOL  RECORDS 

AN  EXPERIMENT 


by 

MARY  S.  MAROT 


BUKEAU  OF  EDUCATIONAL  EXPERIMENTS 
144  West  13th  Street,  New  York 
*  *  1922 


IJUN  1  0  1 
'MAY  2  4  199f 


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441 


Ai*  ip^t1 

LB 
2846 

M34 


Form  L» 


Southern  Branch 
of  the 

University  of  California 

Los  Angeles 


Form  L  1 

LB 
2846 


M54 


School  Records-An  Experiment 


by 
MARY  S.  MAROT 


SOUTHERN  BRANCH, 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA, 

LIBRARY, 

LOS  ANGELES,  CALIF, 


This  report  is  the  result  of  three 
years'  research  as  Recorder  of  the 
Bureau  of  Educational  Experiments 


4  87  63 

BUREAU  OF  EDUCATIONAL  EXPERIMENTS 

144  West  13th  Street,  New  York 

1922 


SCHOOL  RECORDS— AN  EXPERIMENT 

PURPOSE  AND  HISTORY 

In  March,  1918,  the  Bureau  of  Educational  Experiments  began  an 
experiment  in  school  records.  The  undertaking  arose  from  a  practical 
need  felt  by  all  experimental  schools, — the  need  to  know  what  subject 
matter,  equipment,  and  methods  bring  promising  results.  Another  de- 
sire, held  in  common  with  most  school  experiments,  was  to  accumulate 
material  which  should  in  time  contribute  towards  a  better  knowledge 
of  children's  growth  in  school.  To  these  ends  the  Bureau  felt  it  neces- 
sary to  work  directly  on  the  technique  of  school  recording. 

At  the  outset  of  the  experiment  the  old  forms  of  school  reports  in 
common  use  were  discarded  as  inadequate  to  convey  real  information 
concerning  school  procedure.  The  question  of  form  and  method  of 
keeping  new  records  was  left  open,  the  only  requirement  being  that  each 
record  should  supply  educational  data  in  a  sufficiently  organized  form 
to  be  readily  used  by  the  Bureau  and  by  the  school  or  teacher  co-operat- 
ing in  the  experiment. 

The  active  participants  in  the  experiment  were  the  City  and  Coun- 
try School  (formerly  the  Play  School),  the  Nursery  School,  several 
experimental  classes  in  public  elementary  schools,  and  a  Recorder.  The 
City  and  Country  School  children  were  from  three  to  nine  years  old,  in 
groups  of  eight  to  fifteen  children.  The  Nursery  School  children  were 
between  one  and  a  half  and  three  years  old,  in  a  group  of  eight  children. 
The  public  school  children  were  of  the  First,  Fifth,  and  Sixth  Grades. 
The  illustrations  in  this  report  are  nearly  all  from  notes  of  these  schools, 
and  most  of  the  children  were  under  ten  years  of  age. 

For  the  last  two  years,  to  June,  1921,  the  experiment  was  confined 
to  the  City  and  Country  School  and  the  Nursery  School.  In  both  of 
these  schools  the  recording  was  attempted  by  the  teachers  and  by  myself. 
In  the  public  school  classes  I  undertook  the  classroom  recording  alone. 

The  teachers  of  the  City  and  Country  School  had  been  working 
upon  notes  of  their  work  for  several  years  before  the  Bureau  began  its 
experiment.  They  had  kept  notes  of  individual  children  and  of  the 
teachers'  methods,  but  they  were  not  well  satisfied  with  their  material. 
They  had  followed  the  plan  of  making  daily  notes.  Most  of  the  teachers 
in  the  school  followed  this  plan  until  the  last  year  of  our  experiment. 

[3] 


But  it  was  a  burdensome  method  for  the  teacher,  and  it  was  not  practical 
for  general  use  because  it  set  before  the  reader  too  unorganized  or  too 
detailed  a  picture. 

As  recorder  I  made  many  notes  in  these  schools  and  classes,  but  they 
also  were  unsatisfactory7,  though  for  another  reason.  My  notes  of  specific 
subject  matter,  for  example,  always  missed  significant  connecting  links 
which  only  the  teacher  could  supply.  When  I  tried  to  record  the  inter- 
esting first  reactions  of  a  group  of  children  to  some  new  experience,  I 
had  to  go  to  the  teacher  to  find  out  what  other  experiences  had  led  up  to 
this  one.  Moreover,  I  did  not  always  know  which  remarks  of  the  chil- 
dren were  important  enough  to  record.  My  usefulness  was  temporary 
and  experimental.  I  helped  to  do  part  of  the  work  of  recording  while 
we  were  all  learning  how,  and  I  sifted  out  and  generalized  into  conclu- 
sions the  many  differences  of  opinion  and  the  many  ways  of  taking  notes. 

For  a  limited  time  we  tried  continuous  literal  note-taking  every 
day,  to  record  certain  subject  matter.  A  stenographer  had  to  be  spe- 
cially trained  for  this  type  of  recording.  It  was  expensive  and  the  notes 
contained  much  irrelevant  matter.  Even  an  expert  stenographer  loses 
much  of  the  significance  of  the  byplay  because  nobody  but  the  teacher 
understands  its  implications.  Not  even  the  teacher  can  catch  everything 
that  goes  on  in  a  class  of  children,  but  she  can  catch  more  than  anyone 
else  even  while  she  is  teaching.  The  verbatim  notes  did  not  prove  to  be 
of  special  help  to  the  teachers  and  we  discarded  them  except  where  we 
desired  to  quote  the  children  exactly,  and  we  decided  that  these  quoted 
remarks  must  be  chosen  by  the  teacher  in  order  to  assure  their 
significance. 

These  experiences  in  recording  and  the  conclusions  we  drew  from 
them  threw  the  responsibility  for  making  records  squarely  upon  the 
teachers.  The  teachers  and  directors  of  the  City  and  Country  School  and 
the  Nursery  School  accepted  this  responsibility  with  my  help  until  June 
1921.  They  were  ready  then  to  assume  all  of  the  work  themselves.  The 
plan  finally  adopted  by  the  teachers,  after  much  experimenting,  was  that 
of  taking  rough  notes  daily  or  less  often  as  expedient,  and  of  making  an 
organized  summary  of  these  rough  notes  at  the  end  of  a  week.  The 
summary  was  to  be  the  record.  Later  sections  of  this  report  will  give 
illustrations  of  the  teachers'  notes. 

The  organization  of  the  teachers'  summaries  was,  in  each  school, 
the  organization  which  was  finally  adopted  by  the  school  as  its  guide  for 
procedure  as  well  as  for  its  system  of  recording.  We  had  experimented 
with  several  outlines  for  organizing  the  teachers'  notes,  but  no  outline 
proved  satisfactory  in  practice  until  each  school  had  organized  its  pro- 

14] 


cedure,  and  had  made  this  organization  a  basis  for  reporting  the  chil- 
dren's responses. 

The  teachers  in  these  two  schools  recorded  primarily  for  their  own 
use  and  for  their  school.  When  their  material  developed  into  organized 
form  a  demand  for  the  records  began  to  come  from  other  experimental 
schools.  The  City  and  Country  School  and  the  Nursery  School  then 
decided  to  mimeograph  or  to  print  from  time  to  time  records  which  were 
more  or  less  satisfactory.  Some  of  these  records  are  now  ready.*  They 
are  not  sent  out  as  finished  products,  but  are  tentative  both  in  form  and 
as  statements  of  educational  procedure.  They  are  experimental  records 
of  experimental  procedures.  They  are  limited  to  those  school  activities 
which  the  teachers  themselves  are  responsible  for;  they  do  not  include 
the  physician's  and  psychologist's  records.  This  report  also  is  limited  to 
a  discussion  of  teachers'  records. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  experiment  I  formulated  several  tentative 
principles  of  recording  which  had  grown  out  of  past  experience  in  making 
school  records.  The  teachers  of  the  City  and  Country  School,  and  later 
the  Nursery  School,  cooperated  in  trying  out  these  principles  of  record- 
ing and  in  adding  to  them  as  working  hypotheses.  This  cooperation  was 
necessary  to  the  success  of  the  experiment.  One  teacher  in  particular 
made  the  experiment  as  a  whole  possible  by  her  untiring  willingness  to 
test  out  hypotheses,  and  to  experiment  with  various  methods  of  recording. 
Our  experience  showed  that  it  must  be  the  class  teacher  who  makes  the 
record  of  her  own  class,  although  other  people  may  make  contributions 
to  it.  This  decision  caused  us  to  drop  the  public  school  classes  as  con- 
tributors to  our  study  of  recording.  We  could  not  ask  public  school 
teachers  to  record  in  our  way  in  addition  to  making  the  records  required 
of  them  by  the  public  school  system. 

A  discussion  of  recording  finds  its  logical  place  in  a  discussion  of 
teaching.  Recording  is  only  one  of  the  necessary  factors  in  an  efficient 
teaching  procedure.  A  treatment  of  recording  by  itself  is  presenting  the 
cart  without  the  horse  which  makes  it  function.  But  this  experiment 
was  only  concerned  with  recording.  We  are  thus  obliged  to  confine  our 
present  discussion  to  recording,  with  references  to  educational  procedures 
only  in  their  application  to  recording. 


*  See  "A  Nursery  School  Experiment,"  by  Harriet  M.  Johnson,  Bulletin  XI, 
Bureau  of  Educational  Experiments,  1922,  and  "Record  of  Group  VI,"  by  Leila 
V.  Stott,  Bulletin  of  The  City  and  Country  School,  1922.  Record  of  several 
other  groups  can  be  obtained  in  mimeograph  from  The  City  and  Country  School, 
and  a  second  bulletin,  "Record  of  Group  V,"  is  in  preparation. 

15] 


STANDARDS  OF  OBSERVATION  AND  GUIDING 
PRINCIPLES 

Our  experiment  required  a  definition  of  terms  in  order  that  we,  the 
Bureau  and  the  teachers,  should  understand  each  other.  When  we  talked 
about  growth,  curriculum,  environment  and  experience,  what  did  we 
mean?  We  defined  these  terms  and  they  became  our  standards  for 
observing  children  in  school.  We  tried  out  several  principles  as  guides 
to  our  recording  and  we  adopted  those  which  assisted  us  in  gathering 
the  material  we  desired. 

Standards  of  Observation 

The  teachers  in  our  experiment  made  records  as  an  aid  to  their 
teaching  and  as  a  report  of  the  children's  progress  in  school.  They  were 
not  responsible  for  the  work  of  the  doctor  and  the  psychologist,  nor  for 
the  parents  at  home;  and,  although  they  cooperated  with  all  of  these 
people,  their  own  records  were  records  of  what  came  under  their  own 
observation.  When  they  talked  about  growth,  for  example,  they  did  not 
mean  weight  and  height,  they  meant  progress  in  school. 

Growth  (for  teaching  purposes)  we  defined  as  a  child's  progress  in 
ability  to  use  his  environment.  This  progress  can  be  indicated  only  by  a 
continued  recording  of  a  child's  reactions  to  an  environment.  Progress 
is  not  continuous  in  the  sense  of  a  constant  rate,  but  it  does  take  place, 
and  how  it  takes  place  is  what  we  must  observe.  For  example,  a  teacher's 
note  in  October  stated  that  B.'s  attention  was  held  only  for  a  moment  by 
any  kind  of  work.  She  gave  an  illustration.  In  November  she  reported 
some  progress,  "B.  steadies  now  a  little  better;  she  is  making  a  more 
direct  connection  with  the  class  work ;  her  interest  is  always  awake,  but 
she  guesses  rather  than  thinks."  Specific  reactions  to  different  types  of 
work  were  given,  and  it  was  shown  how  B.  compared  with  the  other 
children  and  how  she  reacted  socially.  In  the  following  months  these 
points  were  all  followed  up  until  any  reader  could  see  how,  and  in  what 
respects,  B.  was  progressing  in  her  use  of  the  school  environment. 

Environment  (for  teaching  purposes)  consists  of  those  parts  of  a 
child's  surroundings  which  may  provide  experience  for  him.  Environ- 
ment for  us  includes  the  material  setup,  the  children,  the  teacher,  the 
school,  the  city  streets,  and  the  interrelationships  of  all  of  these.  A  child's 
environment  is  not  static,  it  is  relative  and  changing.  His  environment 
stimulates  him,  he  responds,  and  an  experience  gets  started.  We  must  ob- 
serve these  experiences  and  what  part  of  the  environment  produces  them. 

16] 


Experience  (for  teaching  purposes)  is  a  child's  use  of  his  environ- 
ment, his  participation  in  it.  A  school  is  responsible  for  supplying  to  its 
children  opportunities  for  first  hand  contacts  and  for  making  their  own 
discoveries.  The  children's  progress  in  ability  to  get  this  kind  of  experi- 
ence is  the  measure  of  their  school  growth,  and  the  measure  of  the  success 
of  the  school  environment.  The  teacher  must  observe  the  environment 
to  see  that  it  offers  opportunities  for  this  kind  of  experience. 

Curriculum  for  us  is  the  school's  plan  in  so  far  as  it  is  successful  in 
providing  children  with  a  succession  of  experiences.  Curriculum  in  this 
sense  therefore  is  concerned  only  with  those  parts  of  the  school  surround- 
ings which  the  children  make  definite  use  of.  Subject  matter,  materials, 
the  city  streets,  what  the  other  children  and  the  teacher  bring  to  the 
group,  are  the  raw  material  of  the  curriculum :  when  they  are  utilized  by 
the  school  and  actually  give  experiences  to  the  children,  they  become  cur- 
riculum. 

The  curriculum  is  not  found  in  the  books  the  children  read,  nor  in 
what  the  teacher  tells  them,  until  the  children  begin  to  get  experience 
from  this  presented  environment.  The  course  in  science  is  not  curriculum 
until  the  children  begin  to  get  from  it,  or  through  it,  a  stimulus  to  scien- 
tific inquiry;  until  they  begin  to  ask  spontaneous  questions,  not  directly 
suggested  by  the  teacher  but  by  their  own  desire  to  learn.  "What  is  this 
button?",  "What  is  that  jar  for?"  may  or  may  not  be  a  beginning  of 
scientific  inquiry.  "This  button  is  not  in  the  same  place  as  that  one, 
what  does  //  do?"  "There's  a  wire  from  that  jar.  Does  it  go  to  a  bell? 
I  don't  see  any  bell.  Where  does  it  go  then?  What  is  it  for?"  Records 
of  such  questions  as  these  indicate  that  children  are  making  use  of  the 
school  environment,  that  they  are  ready  for  more  experience,  are  using 
past  experience  to  draw  their  own  inferences  in  a  new  situation  and  to 
ask  for  new  explanations. 

Guiding  Principles 

We  decided,  then,  that  records  would  provide  reliable  data  for 
school  purposes  only  if  we  made  our  observations  of  children's  responses 
with  our  school  definitions  of  growth,  environment,  experience,  and  cur- 
riculum clearly  in  mind.  We  decided  furthermore  that  our  records  must 
contain  certain  information  and  must  be  gathered  according  to  a  certain 
method.  This  method  was  supplied  by  the  guiding  principles  which  we 
adopted. 

Records  must  provide  information  for  making  changes  in  school  pro- 
cedure.   Our  school  records  were  planned  to  help  the  schools  to  know 

17] 


what  they  were  accomplishing  and  where  to  make  changes.  A  school  can- 
not stop  satisfied,  it  must  continue  to  change.  A  record  should  help  a 
school  to  build  up  standards  which  it  expects  to  put  to  use  as  measures  of 
its  efficiency  in  meeting  the  needs  of  its  children.  For  this  purpose  school 
records  must  be  under  the  constant  scrutiny  of  the  school  staff,  who  will 
use  them  to  see  that  the  school  environment  is  successfully  providing  ex- 
perience for  the  children.  The  various  parts  of  the  school  curriculum 
must  be  subject  to  change  when  they  no  longer  effect  progress.  But  the 
old  school  methods  of  recording  do  not  provide  specific  information  which 
will  assist  a  school  in  making  changes  in  procedure,  either  for  the  benefit 
of  individuals  or  for  the  whole  class. 

The  old  methods  of  recording  attempt  to  record  individual  progress, 
but  they  do  not  succeed  in  this.  "Percents,"  or  "poor,"  "excellent,"  carry- 
different  meanings  to  different  people.  "He  has  greatly  improved  in  be- 
havior" is  an  opinion  which  may  or  may  not  be  colored  by  the  teacher's 
personal  attitude  toward  children's  behavior;  it  carries  with  it  no  evi- 
dence. "Very  independent,"  "good  cooperation,"  "highly  original,"  con- 
vey no  real  information.  They  are  subjective  terms  which  merely  give 
the  teacher's  own  feeling  in  the  case ;  they  supply  no  basis  for  comparison, 
for  watching  progress.  Nobody  is  independent  or  original  under  all  cir- 
cumstances ;  people  cooperate  sometimes  but  not  always.  A  school  report, 
to  be  of  real  use,  must  answer  questions  like  these:  "What  were  the  con- 
ditions when  the  child  showed  independence  and  who  were  with  him? 
What  part  did  he  play  in  the  group  when  he  cooperated  and  who  were 
the  other  children?  What  kind  of  activity  was  going  on  when  he  showed 
originality?  Did  he  differ  from  the  other  children  in  this?  Did  he  gen- 
erally show  originality  when  working  with  certain  material?" 

Whether  a  child  is  progressing  satisfactorily  or  not  a  teacher  must 
be  sure  that  she  has  real  information  about  his  school  growth,  that  she 
is  not  depending  upon  vague  impressions,  that  she  is  depending  upon 
concrete  evidence.  When  a  child  is  not  growing  in  originality,  inde- 
pendence, skill,  the  power  to  get  knowledge  for  himself,  etc.,  his  teacher 
must  know  how  he  shows  this,  how  he  is  different  from  the  other  chil- 
dren, or  like  them,  and  what  the  environmental  conditions  are.  This 
information  is  essential  if  the  teacher's  purpose  is  to  find  out  how  to 
change  his  environment  to  fit  his  needs. 

The  old  school  methods  of  recording  lend  themselves  no  better  to 
the  purpose  of  changing  the  curriculum.  A  high  percentage  of  a  class 
average  in  history,  or  the  words  "All  showed  much  interest,"  may  mean 
merely  that  the  children  memorized  what  was  presented,  or  that  the 
teacher  made  the  lessons  interesting.    What  sort  of  progress  these  lessons 

181 


brought  to  the  children  is  not  shown  at  all.  A  supervisor  could  not  tell 
from  reports  of  this  kind  whether  these  history  lessons  were  educating 
the  children  or  not.  The  only  kind  of  records  which  show  this  are 
records  which  show  the  spontaneous  reactions  of  the  children  to  the 
material  presented.  Few  schools  supply  such  records,  and  they  base  most 
of  their  changes  upon  wholly  inadequate  data,  or  upon  no  data  at  all. 

In  fact  the  majority  of  school  records  report  the  child's  success  or 
failure;  they  do  not  report  the  success  or  failure  of  the  environment  to 
fit  the  children.  They  ask  the  children  to  change;  they  forget  to  watch 
for  faults  in  the  curriculum. 

The  careful  observing  and  recording,  the  willingness  to  modify  the 
environment  which  this  new  recording  implies,  take  time.  But  the  alert- 
ness, initiative  and  originality  which  this  procedure  encourages  in  teachers 
when  they  follow  the  method  should  give  pause  for  thought  to  a  super- 
intendent who  finds  a  lack  of  these  virtues  among  his  staff. 

Concrete  illustrations  are  necessary  to  a  school  record  in  order  that 
the  picture  may  be  clear  enough  to  base  changes  upon.  These  illustraV 
tions  must  show  the  actual  activities  of  the  children,  what  they  do  in 
lesponse  to  what  the  environment  presents  to  them.  A  picture  of  what, 
really  happens  will  contain  concrete  notes  of  typical  or  significant  occur- 
rences. For  example,  a  teacher  noted  what  a  five-year-old  said  while 
playing  with  his  block  building.  "There  is  oil  in  this  building.  Have  to 
take  it  up  this  way."  If  to  this  illustration  the  teacher  added,  "This 
dramatic  content  is  characteristic  of  most  of  the  children's  play,"  or 
"This  play  with  their  building  is  common  to  only  a  few,"  we  should  have 
information  to  work  upon  and  something  to  watch  for.  We  should 
expect  future  reports  to  show  what  changes  in  building  took  place,  and 
in  what  new  ways  the  children  played  with  their  structures  when  built. 

A  teacher  of  a  certain  class  was  called  upon  to  report  what  her  chil- 
dren were  actively  engaged  in,  and  what  they  were  getting  out  of  their 
school  time.  She  chose,  as  her  method  of  reporting,  a  detailed  word 
picture  of  the  children's  experience  during  one  school  day.  This  day, 
she  stated,  was  a  characteristic  one  with  these  children  at  this  particular 
stage.  She  then  noted  that  such  and  such  changes  in  the  children  had 
been  going  on  since  school  began,  and  that  she  was  watching  for  other 
changes.  This  kind  of  a  report  is  practical.  The  supervisor,  or  the 
teacher  herself,  can  go  back  to  this  report  and  look  forward  from  it  when 
she  wishes  to  know  what  her  children  are  achieving. 

What  the  children  are  achieving  is  shown  only  in  the  responses  of  \\ 
the  children  themselves.    What  they  do  is  what  we  wish  to  know  when 
we  ask  for  a  school  report.    What  the  teacher  gives  them  makes  no  dif- 

[91 


ierence  unless  we  know  what  the  children  do  with  it.  It  is  only  by 
watching  and  recording  the  children's  responses  that  a  teacher  can  give 
us  this  information.  Only  a  picture  of  the  children's  responses  will  show 
whether  the  school  has  set  up  surroundings  which  bring  the  desired  re- 
sults and  whether  the  teacher's  methods  work  to  the  same  ends.  A  report 
of  what  subjects  and  what  equipment  the  school  sets  up  does  not  show 
what  educational  values  the  children  actually  get  out  of  these  subjects 
and  materials, — that  is,  how  they  use  them. 

Both  parents  and  supervisors  wish  to  know  whether  the  school  is  a 
success,  a  success  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  children's  development. 
A  school  may  surround  the  children  with  everything  it  can  devise  as  an 
educational  expedient.  The  children  will  appropriate  and  make  their 
own  only  a  part  of  it.  The  world  as  well  surrounds  children  with  a 
varied  and  complex  environment,  but  much  of  it  makes  no  impression  at 
all  upon  them  so  far  as  we  can  see.  What  we  wish  to  know  about  a 
school  is  what  does  make  an  impression  and  what  impressions  assist  in 
the  children's  school  growth.  The  only  reports  which  can  give  us  this 
information  are  reports  which  show  the  children's  developing  and  chang- 
ing reactions  to  the  school  environment. 

Records  which  are  to  show  school  progress  must  show  processes  of 
growth  in  the  school.  It  is  how  a  child  attacks  his  work  or  play  which 
determines  his  growth.  It  makes  little  difference  whether  he  learns  the 
capitals  of  all  the  states,  but  much  difference  whether  he  is  forming  the 
habit  of  going  after  what  he  wants  to  know  when  he  wants  to  know  it. 
He  may  want  to  know  the  chief  salt  manufacturing  city  to-day ;  he  may 
not  need  to  know  the  capital  of  his  state  until  he  is  a  man.  It  is  the 
habit,  the  process,  which  is  important.  This  process  of  growth  is  what 
we  must  watch  and  cultivate  and  record.  It  is  not  measured  by  the 
quantity  of  geography  or  spelling  he  is  accumulating. 

A  record  of  growth  processes  (for  a  teacher's  purpose)  must  be  a 
report  of  what  takes  place  while  the  children  are  learning.  An  exami- 
nation shows  only  how  much  information  they  have  acquired,  and  a 
recitation  seldom  shows  more.  A  school  that  undertakes  to  watch  proc- 
esses, and  to  base  its  procedure  and  what  it  supplies  of  subject  matter 
upon  what  it  knows  about  the  children's  habits  of  thinking  and  habits 
of  working,  will  find  little  need  to  worry  about  how  much  the  children 
know.  A  teacher  in  such  a  school  will  be  kept  busy  satisfying  the  chil- 
dren's demands  for  knowledge.  A  record  of  processes  of  growth  in  school 
will  show  that  a  child's  environment  acts  continuously.  He  reacts  to  it 
continuously  and  spontaneously,  but  not  with  the  systematic  regularity  of 
the  formal  school  programs  and  reports.    Both  the  child  and  the  environ- 

[  101 


ment  change.  We  did  not  make  use  of  the  formal  school  reports,  and 
we  also  did  not  use  the  modern  objective  tests  of  the  psychologists  for  our 
school  records  nor  the  standardized  measurements  of  progress  in  school 
subjects  because  they  do  not  show  this  continuous  interaction  and  change 
between  the  children  and  their  environment.  We  needed  to  know  as 
much  as  possible  about  the  children's  processes  of  growth  in  school  in 
order  to  teach  them,  and  we  could  get  this  information  only  from  records 
which  would  show  (so  far  as  it  practically  could  be  recorded)  the  chil- 
dren's continuous  interaction  with  their  environment. 

The  activity  of  the  group  must  be  observed  and  recorded.  Our  pur- 
pose in  recording  was  to  study  children's  habits  of  learning  in  school.  A 
child's  habits  in  the  school  environment  are  formed  while  he  is  among 
other  children.  Other  children  are  an  influence  in  his  growth.  Conse- 
quently we  based  our  records  upon  notes  of  the  group  activities  which 
surrounded  him  and  of  which  he  was  a  part.  Children  acquire  most  of 
their  knowledge  in  company;  we  teach  them  together.  We  must  know 
the  group's  reaction  to  the  environment  if  we  wish  to  find  out  what 
brings  about  the  growth  of  habits  in  school,  and  what  changes  in  cur- 
riculum we  must  make  in  order  that  better  habits  may  be  formed  or  that 
progress  may  continue. 

Detached  reports  of  individuals,  whether  percentage  ratings  or  de- 
scriptive words,  do  not  show  what  is  actually  going  on.  They  do  not 
show  an  individual's  progress  in  experience,  and  still  less  do  they  show 
the  success  of  subject  matter,  materials,  or  the  teacher's  method.  An 
average  percentage  of  the  individual  successes  or  failures  in  a  class  gives 
no  real  information  about  a  subject  that  has  been  studied  by  the  children. 
It  gives  no  indication  of  the  complete  situation,  of  the  influences  which, 
acting  together,  produce  the  effect.  The  only  record  which  will  show 
the  curriculum  in  the  sense  of  our  definition,  with  its  effects  in  growth, 
is  an  account  of  children  and  teacher  working  together, — a  record  of 
group  activity. 

The  teacher  herself  must  be  the  recorder.  The  only  person  who  can 
approach  a  telling  of  the  whole  story  of  the  children  working  together  in 
their  daily  school  activities  is  the  teacher.  A  teacher  who  accustoms 
herself  to  watching  the  group  as  a  whole,  to  seeing  interrelationships  that 
take  place,  will  appreciate  the  value  of  group  records.  The  very  neces- 
sity of  observing  group  reactions  in  order  to  report  them,  will  make  a 
teacher  more  keenly  alive  to  the  influences  of  social  contact.  She  is  the 
only  person  who  is  in  a  position  to  see  the  majority  of  these  interrelation- 
ships and  who  is  able  to  estimate  their  value.     It  is  she  also  who  brings 

[  11  ] 


about  a  continuity  of  experience,  who  suggests  and  supplies  new  subject 
matter  or  materials  as  they  are  needed.  It  is  the  teacher,  then,  who  must 
be  the  recorder  of  the  activities  of  her  own  group  of  children,  in  order 
that  there  may  be  continuity  and  accuracy  in  the  recording. 

A  teacher  should  also  be  a  recorder  for  her  own  benefit.  Recording 
in  some  systematic  fashion  is  the  only  way  for  a  teacher  to  check  up  her 
own  procedure,  to  make  sure  that  she  knows  what  is  continuous,  what 
brings  interruptions,  what  is  important,  what  is  merely  trivial  occurrence. 
A  teacher  cannot  trust  her  memory,  her  unsupported  opinion.  Even  a 
highly  skilled  teacher  needs  something  to  guide  her  in  making  changes, 
and  in  deciding  when  these  changes  should  be  made. 

The  impulse  to  record  by  the  teachers  of  the  City  and  Country 
School  and  the  Nursery  School  is  that  of  the  experimenting  scientist. 
One  of  these  teachers  said  of  recording:  "In  any  scientific  experiment 
notes  are  necessary.  A  teacher  in  an  experimental  school  should  keep 
track  of  individual  children,  and  also  of  the  steps  taken  in  the  class  work. 
She  should  do  this  in  order  to  follow  up  and  compare  results  with  dif- 
ferent procedures.  She  should  include  enough  of  the  children's  responses 
to  compare  one  procedure  with  another,"  as  well  as  for  the  purpose  of 
keeping  track  of  individuals. 

The  organization  of  a  school's  record  material  will  correspond  to  its 
organization  of  procedure  if  its  records  are  to  be  of  use  to  the  scool.  In 
our  experiment  no  outline  or  organization  proved  satisfactory  until  each 
school  concerned  decided  in  the  first  place  why  it  was  keeping  records ; 
that  is,  how  the  school  wished  to  use  them,  who  wished  to  use  them,  and 
what  information  they  should  contain.  Secondly  and  obviously  this 
information  must  be  so  arranged  that  it  could  be  readily  used.  Finally, 
the  headings  under  which  the  teachers'  notes  were  organized  must  be  as 
objective  as  possible  in  order  to  be  intelligible  and  to  be  unmistakable  in 
their  meaning.  We  experimented  with  the  terms  "creative  activity"  and 
"cooperation,"  among  others,  but  they  were  not  concrete  enough.  They 
did  not  mean  the  same  thing  to  all  who  used  them. 

The  teachers  of  the  two  schools  which  were  experimenting  adopted 
different  outlines  for  organizing  their  notes.  These  outlines  may  quite 
fail  to  meet  the  needs  of  other  schools  who  have  children  of  the  same 
age.  But  whether  they  do  or  not  is  beside  the  point;  the  point  is  that  an 
organization  of  any  kind  within  a  school  is  more  likely  to  be  lived  up  to 
in  practice  when  it  is  made  by  the  people  who  have  the  responsibility  of 
carrying  it  out. 

A  record  of  recording,  which  this  report  undertakes  to  be,  must  ful- 
fill its  own  demand  that  a  record  shall  provide  concrete  illustrations.    I 

[  12  1 


have  divided  these  illustrations  into  two  heads  for  practical  reasons  of 
reference, — Records  of  Curriculum  Functioning,  and  Records  of  Indi- 
vidual Children.  This  division  is  made  in  answer  to  two  common  ques- 
tions from  experimental  school  people:  "How  can  I  let  a  new  teacher 
know  what  our  course  of  study  means  and  how  we  use  it?"  and  "How 
can  we  make  the  children's  reports  give  real  information  to  the  next 
teacher?"  Our  own  queries  were,  what  kind  of  records  will  best  serve 
our  schools,  and  what  information  must  these  records  give  as  a  basis  for 
changes  in  curriculum  ? 

The  discussion  of  these  two  topics,  Records  of  Cuiriculum  Func- 
tioning, and  Records  of  Individual  Children,  will  contain  many  repeti- 
tions because  they  are  based  upon  the  same  guiding  principles  and  the 
same  standards  of  observation.  But  the  illustrations  have  been  chosen 
irom  school  occurrences  which  in  the  one  case  were  weighted  with  cur- 
riculum information,  and  in  the  other  with  information  about  individuals. 
Often  an  illustration  telling  about  an  individual  would  also  indicate  the 
curriculum  just  as  well.  But  this  only  serves  to  confirm  what  the  discus- 
sion of  our  guiding  principles  implies,  and  what  our  experience  proved 
for  us,  that  one  and  the  same  record  must  be  used  for  recording  both 
curriculum  and  individual  progress,  and  that  neither  record  will  be  clear 
li  these  interrelated  topics  are  kept  separate. 


[13] 


RECORDS  OF  FUNCTIONING  OF  CURRICULUM 
Formal  Curriculum  Determined  by  Tradition  or  Authority 

The  traditional  school  curriculum  only  recently  has  become  open  to 
suggestions  of  fundamental  changes.  It  is  difficult  for  any  of  us  to  see 
clearly  enough  to  break  away  from  the  old  leading  strings.  Most  of  us 
still  keep  the  old  course  of  study,  the  subject  matter  required  for  culture, 
even  when  we  add  other  more  practical  subjects.  We  still  ask  "When?" 
We  ask  at  what  age  shall  this  cultural  subject  be  placed  in  the  course  of 
study.  We  do  not  ask,  "What  is  the  evidence  that  this  subject  is  cul- 
tural?" It  may  be,  but  we  only  have  hearsay  to  prove  it.  No  school  can 
be  sure  that  such  and  such  a  subject  is  good  or  otherwise  unless  it  has 
concrete  evidence  at  hand. 

Schools  have  based  their  choice  of  subjects  and  materials  and  meth- 
ods, not  upon  concrete  information  showing  their  own  use  or  need,  but 
upon  what  has  been  done  before  by  other  schools.  When  school  directors 
do  contemplate  making  changes,  they  adopt  those  a  school  somewhat  like 
their  own  has  found  successful;  or  they  plunge  into  a  haphazard  method, 
first  this  and  then  that  device  or  material.  When  these  prove  misfits, 
they  look  up  another  authority  whose  plan  they  try. 

Superintendents  who  wish  information  usually  inquire  whether  the 
children  have  learned  all  that  the  teacher  has  been  directed  to  set  before 
them,  and  what  they  have  been  unable  to  learn  in  the  time  allowed.  They 
seldom  ask  whether  the  children  have  acquired  the  habit  of  making  use 
of  whatever  may  be  about  them  which  contributes  to  their  experience  of 
the  subject  under  discussion ;  whether  the  children  themselves  have  been 
making  spontaneous  contributions  to  the  group's  progress  in  learning.  If 
a  superintendent  should  ask  such  questions  his  teachers  would  have  no 
adequate  data  by  which  to  answer  them.  Few  schools  have  these  data ; 
they  do  not  have  evidence  to  base  their  changes  upon.  Many  teachers, 
when  asked  for  information,  advise  materials  or  methods  because  the 
children  like  them,  or  because  the  teacher  herself  is  used  to  them  and 
does  not  wish  to  change.  This  unwillingness  to  change  is  not  always  due 
to  inertia  or  indifference.  Both  superintendents  and  teachers  are  a  hard- 
working class.  They  do  not  wish  to  change  because  no  convincing 
reasons  are  given  for  the  changes  proposed,  and  because  no  way  is  sug- 
gested of  finding  out  whether  the  new  will  be  any  more  successful  than 
the  old.  The  usual  trial  and  error  method  of  making  changes  is  discour- 
aging to  a  teacher.  She  has  no  standards  of  observation,  no  organized 
and  continuous  method  of  recording  to  guide  her. 

f  14] 


The  difference  between  a  school  having  a  flexible  curriculum  deter- 
mined by  its  own  conditions  and  one  that  is  run  on  traditional  lines  is 
simple.  The  former  starts  out  with  the  knowledge  that  we  still  know 
very  little  about  what  makes  children  learn  and  grow.  It  bases  its  choice 
of  an  environment  upon  what  it  knows  about  the  children  who  will  come 
to  the  school.  It  chooses  an  equipment  which  can  be  changed  at  least  in 
part  as  changes  are  needed.  The  school  then  watches  and  records  how 
this  environment  (including  the  children  themselves)  reacts  upon  the 
group  as  a  whole,  whether  it  promotes  school  progress,  and  how  it  may 
be  changed  in  order  to  bring  better  results. 

The  usual  formal  school  on  the  contrary  provides  a  course  of  study 
which  is  based  upon  what  the  school  has  decided  beforehand  that  the 
children  should  know  and  how  the  children  should  act.  This  tradi- 
tional curriculum  can  be  changed  at  best  only  at  the  end  of  the  year. 
It  is  widely  recognized  as  inadequate  and  cumbersome,  and  in  the  end 
expensive  of  time  and  energy.  Schools  unlike  in  procedure  or  in  enroll- 
ment adopt  the  same  course  of  study, — tradition  or  authority  decide  upon 
it  for  them.  Schools  which  make  changes  as  they  are  needed  in  their 
own  classes  are  rare.  Still  more  rare  are  schools  which  depend  upon  their 
own  carefully  kept  records  for  suggestions  of  changes  in  subject  matter, 
equipment  and  method. 

Teachers'  Records  a  Basis  for  Determining  Curriculum 

Data  showing  what  experiences  the  children  get  out  of  the  environ- 
ment provided  by  the  school,  give  a  practical  basis  for  making  changes  in 
the  course  of  study,  in  the  material  equipment,  in  the  teacher's  methods. 
The  teacher  can  best  supply  these  data.  Only  the  teacher  can  show  the 
steps,  the  processes  of  growth  in  school.  The  Nursery  School  says  of 
note-taking,  "We  set  up  hypotheses"  but  without  "our  own  notes"  .  .  . 
"we  cannot  make  accurate  discriminations,  .  .  .  We  must  have  evidence 
in  order  to  prove  or  disprove  and  to  change." 

Systematic  concrete  notes  are  a  check  to  the  teachers  who  write 
them.  They  furnish  a  supervisor  with  material  for  judging  what  it  is 
that  is  bringing  progress  or  the  reverse.  A  school  principal  sees  "spots" 
when  he  sets  forth  on  a  tour  of  inspection.  He  does  not  see  what  pre- 
ceded nor  what  will  follow  the  lessons  that  he  observes,  he  only  sees  what 
is  going  on  at  the  moment.  He  can  gain  enlightenment  only  through 
continuous  records,  records  which  are  concrete  enough  to  take  the  place 
of  his  own  sight,  and  which  will  supplement  his  isolated  Visits.  The 
Director  of  the  City  and  Country  School  has  such  notes  to  read.    From 

115] 


one  teacher  she  had  notes  upon  number  and  drawing  which  covered  a 
considerable  period  of  time.  After  reading  these  notes  she  made  calls 
during  class  time,  and  was  able  to  make  helpful  practical  comments  be- 
cause she  had  concrete  information  for  a  discussion  with  the  teacher  of 
changes  in  method. 

Records  of  Special  Subjects 

A  teacher's  systematic  concrete  notes  are  the  only  safe  basis  for 
determining  the  value  to  children  of  special  subjects  of  study.  A  certain 
subject  was  adopted  in  one  school  because  the  teacher's  plan  of  work  and 
her  materials  seemed  very  attractive  and  suitable.  After  months  of  trial 
the  class  teachers  expressed  varying  degrees  of  satisfaction,  and  equally 
varied  opinions  about  the  effect  upon  the  children  of  this  subject  matter 
and  its  presentation.  Nobody  had  notes  to  back  up  their  opinions;  the 
teachers  supplied  only  isolated,  remembered  incidents.  The  school  wished 
to  reach  a  just  and  reliable  conclusion  and  began  careful  notes  of  the 
children's  responses  to  these  lessons.  Notes  were  made  of  all  the  lessons 
in  all  the  classes  for  some  months  because  the  information  that  had  gone 
before  had  been  confusing.  It  was  contradictory ;  it  was  opinion,  not 
concrete  evidence.  Summaries  were  made  of  this  new  body  of  continuous, 
concrete  information,  summaries  of  the  responses  of  the  children  at  dif- 
ferent ages. 

These  summaries  gave  rise  to  general  conclusions  about  each  class 
and  together  they  formed  an  intelligent  basis  for  decisions  upon  the  sub- 
ject matter  as  a  whole.  In  a  class  of  three-year  olds  the  children  merely 
looked  on.  They  were  either  quite  passive  or  were  excited  ;  they  showed 
no  initiative  towards  the  material  and  soon  wandered  off  to  some  more 
active  occupation.  In  this  class  the  subject  was  dropped ;  there  was  no 
growth  for  the  children,  they  gained  no  habit  of  learning  for  themselves. 
In  an  older  class  the  children  were  so  pleased,  so  attentive  and  responsive, 
that  only  a  continuous  record  over  several  months  served  to  show  that 
these  children  also  only  looked  on.  They  made  exclamations  of  pleasure; 
but  they  took  little  action  on  their  own  account ;  they  acted  upon  what 
the  teacher  suggested,  "Do  you  want  to  .  .  .  ?"  The  subject  as  presented 
did  not  arouse  the  spontaneous  inquiries  of  these  children ;  it  did  not  of 
itself  stimulate  action.  The  lessons  were  an  entertainment  only ;  the 
children's  activities  had  to  be  directed  by  the  teacher.  Notes  of  the  other 
classes  were  equally  illuminating,  and  the  school  finally  gave  up  the 
special  lessons  but  kept  the  subject  in  an  altered  form.  The  teachers 
kept  notes  of  the  changes  in  procedure  which  they  had  made  that  they 
might  have  data  for  future  judgments. 

[  161 


A  mere  list  of  subject  matter  topics  is  of  use  neither  to  a  new 
teacher  nor  to  parents.  Catalogues  of  private  schools  are  obliged  to  add 
photographs  to  show  the  children's  active  use  of  the  subject  presented. 
The  actual  response  of  the  children  is  needed  to  tell  the  tale.  Tradi- 
tional subject  matter  terms  do  not  describe  these  reactions.  "History: 
the  Revolutionary  War"  gives  no  real  information.  The  following  notes 
show  what  the  children  did :  "The  class  paid  three  visits  to  the  ruins  of 
an  old  fort.  They  read  up  local  history  between  visits,  and  reconstructed 
the  positions  of  the  two  armies  on  the  spot,  comparing  their  respective 
advantages  and  disadvantages.  These  comparisons  unexpectedly  led  to 
the  discovery  that  the  course  of  the  stream  close  by  had  changed  since 
revolutionary  days,  and  the  discussions  that  followed  formed  a  new  topic 
which  required  a  good  deal  of  research  by  the  children  in  geography 
books." 

The  teacher  of  a  new  class  cannot  afford  to  neglect  the  information 
about  the  class  contained  in  the  preceding  teacher's  notes.  A  teacher  of 
eight-year-old  children  did  not  look  up  what  their  teacher  of  the  year 
before  had  written  about  them.  Her  own  notes  criticised  their  slowness 
in  arithmetic.  She  said  she  had  "tried  having  a  match,  .  .  .  which 
the  children  were  not  familiar  with."  In  this  case  it  was  the  teacher  who 
was  not  familiar  with  her  children.  The  notes  of  their  previous  teacher 
showed  that  they  had  delighted  in  all  sorts  of  arithmetic  games  and 
matches  the  year  before.  When,  in  January,  the  second  teacher  read  the 
previous  year's  notes  of  these  children  she  frankly  admitted  that  she  her- 
self, had  confused  and  retarded  them  by  not  finding  out  what  they  had 
done  before.  She  had  asked  for  quantitative  reports, — how  many,  how 
much  of  each  kind  of  subject  matter,  and  for  some  time  she  was  not 
interested  in  concrete  reports  of  the  children's  responses,  or  how  children 
use  material,  but  only  in  what  she  or  a  preceding  teacher  had  presented. 

Important  facts  to  get  into  a  record  are  those  which  tell  whether 
the  subject  noted  has  developed  spontaneous  activity  on  the  part  of  the 
children,  and  what  conditions,  or  what  treatment  of  the  subject  by  the 
teacher  helped  to  bring  spontaneous  response  from  the  children.  The 
notes  of  a  teacher  of  seven-year-old  children  show  their  active  use  of 
number  and  the  spontaneous  drill  they  gave  each  other  in  order  to  achieve 
a  group  response. 

November  Summary:  The  feeling  of  a  need  for  number  has  centered 
largely  around  the  store.  The  class  office  of  treasurer  is  a  highly  es- 
teemed one,  and  it  was  decided  by  the  group  that  only  children  passing 
certain  tests  could  aspire  to  it.  The  tests  are  reading  and  writing  num- 
bers to  100  by  ones,  fives  and  tens.  As  soon  as  anyone  passed  these  tests 
he  began  helping  the  others.    ...   A  certain  facility  in  making  change 

[  17] 


is  also  demanded  of  anyone  wishing  to  sell  food  (which  the  children  had 
made)  at  the  sales.  Two  or  three  times  in  a  free  period  the  children 
have  played  store.  On  the  8th  C.  with  some  help  counted  to  40,  the  seven 
others  listening  intently.  (A  free  period  is  undirected  by  the  teacher.) 
.  .  .  The  children  feel  responsible  for  slow  children  on  account  of 
the  store. 

A  class  teacher  of  six-year-olds  also  reported  a  spontaneous  use  of 
the  school  environment.  Her  notes  included  the  children's  use  of  infor- 
mation brought  from  home, — their  contribution  to  others'  use  as  well  as 
their  own  use, — and  her  method  of  organizing  their  activities  and  the 
information  made  use  of  during  class  discussions.  Class  discussion  time 
was  the  teacher's  opportunity  to  encourage  a  habit  of  inquiry,  and  to 
make  use  of  the  children's  spontaneous  inquiries  to  organize  their  infor- 
mation and  to  connect  it  with  common  occurrences  in  their  daily  lives. 

Week  of  February  7. — The  block  scheme  this  week  was  entirely 
spontaneous  and  well  launched  before  I  saw  it.  It  involved  an  iron  mine 
drawn  in  chalk  on  the  floor  by  CI.  "An  iron  factory"  .  .  .  "where  the 
iron  is  melted  up  and  made  into  things,"  was  built  near  by.  Close  to  the 
factory  docks  were  built,  and  barges  pulled  by  tugs  were  loaded  with 
iron  products,  and  taken  to  "N.  Y." 

As  this  play  scheme  carried  over  several  days  and  included  nearly 
ail  the  class,  I  made  it  the  subject  of  Thursday's  discussion.  The  interest 
was  chiefly  in  pursuing  the  mining  end  of  iron  industry  and  the  children 
introduced  the  subject  of  the  use  of  dynamite  for  breaking  up  rocks  con- 
taining iron.  They  were  very  much  interested  in  the  details  of  dynamite 
explosion,  wanted  to  know  what  made  the  rocks  break,  how  dynamite 
could  be  set  off  without  blowing  up  the  man  who  lighted  it.  Comparisons 
were  made  (by  the  children)  to  the  push  of  hot  air  as  seen  in  their 
science  experiments,  and  to  the  familiar  push  of  steam. 

Other  notes  of  the  same  class  show  the  children's  experience  in  lan- 
guage and  some  of  the  teacher's  ways  of  getting  practice  and  originality. 

Week  of  February  7. — L.  for  the  first  time  told  an  original  story.  I 
had  to  suggest  the  topic,  home  experiences,  and  keep  out  extraneous 
matter  by  criticisms,  .  .  .  but  he  enjoyed  the  effort  and  produced  a 
pretty  good  narrative.  E.  also  told  several  stories  which  she  wanted 
written  into  a  book  she  had  made,  to  correspond  to  the  illustrations. 
M.  on  Friday  dictated  a  story  meant  to  be  dramatized.  All  were  en- 
thusiastic about  the  idea  and  went  up  to  the  sun  room  to  prepare  for 
playing  it.  .  .  .  (They  arranged  a  stage  setting  of  blocks.)  .  .  .  The 
story  included  a  two  nights'  journey  on  a  ship,  which  was  tossing  badly 
in  a  storm.  .  .  .  M.  made  a  real  attempt  to  picture  in  words  the  rolling 
of  the  boat  on  the  waves.  He  began  by  using  gestures  to  help  out,  and 
C.  gave  him  the  word  "tossing,"  but  the  rest  was  all  his  own,  and  he 
used  a  sort  of  refrain  to  emphasize  the  roughness  of  his  trip.  Proof  of 
his  success  in  this  seemed  to  me  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  other 
children  featured  the  stormy  trip  in  their  dramatization  later  and  did  so 
not  in  his  words,  but  in  motor  expressions  of  their  own. 

[  18] 


In  L.'s  and  E.'s  stories  I  put  all  my  effort  into  centering  their  atten- 
tion on  unity  of  thought,  as  both  were  much  inclined  to  wander  off  into 
irrelevant  concerns. 

Another  record  of  language  teaching  in  a  class  of  six-year-old  chil- 
dren is  a  record  by  a  special  teacher  of  English  who  was  making  an 
experiment  along  new  lines.  Her  report  is  a  statement  of  her  purposes, 
of  how  she  planned  to  work  them  out,  and  of  her  success  as  shown  in 
several  of  the  children's  stories.  This  was  not  a  planned-beforehand- 
and-put-through  so-called  experiment.  It  was  an  experiment  carried 
out  by  the  special  teacher  assisted  by  the  class  teacher,  both  of  whom 
watched  and  recorded  the  children's  responses,  and  changed  the  approach, 
the  teacher's  suggestions,  to  fit  these  responses  of  the  children.  It  was  a 
scientific  experiment.  The  purpose  was  the  development  of  an  art,  but 
this  in  no  way  altered  the  necessity  for  a  scientific  recording  of  results. 
The  report,  part  of  which  follows,  was  written  after  a  careful  study  of 
the  concrete  notes  taken  by  both  teachers.  It  was  accompanied  by  several 
of  the  group  stories,  only  one  of  which  is  given  here. 

The  work  in  language  with  the  Sixes  in  the  Spring  of  1920  was 
started  distinctly  as  a  pre-reading  experience.  I  had  two  primary  aims. 
The  first  was  to  get  the  children  interested  in  listening  to  sounds  in  gen- 
eral,— street  sounds,  water  splashing  in  the  tub,  the  fire,  etc., — and  so 
gradually  to  the  sound  quality  of  language,  both  of  individual  words  and 
their  rhythm  when  combined  into  sentences.  The  second  aim  was  to 
get  the  children  to  give  verbal  expression  to  their  sense  and  motor  expe- 
riences. The  school  felt  that  listening  and  verbal  expression  might  be 
regarded  as  preliminary  techniques  to  the  technique  of  actual  reading. 
The  method  used  for  this  pre-reading  training  was  experimental.  It  in- 
cluded the  reading  of  much  verse  and  a  few  stories  which  had  marked 
rhythmic  and  sound  quality,  and  the  telling  by  the  class  of  group  stories. 
I  tried  to  have  each  period  include  some  listening  and  some  expression 
by  the  children. 

All  the  group  stories  aimed  to  make  vivid  some  experience  common 
to  all.  When  possible,  we  chose  an  experience — such  as  rain  on  a  rainy 
day — in  which  we  could  make  immediate  sense  observations  instead  of 
relying  upon  memory.  This  definitely  interested  the  children  and  gave 
them  an  idea  of  a  story  in  which  plot  did  not  predominate.  Sometimes 
in  order  to  get  the  whole  group  to  think  about  the  same  thing  in  their 
group  stories  I  introduced  pictures.  I  chose  pictures  which  had  little 
narrative  suggestion.  The  children  discussed  how  the  picture  made  them 
feel,  as  "sleepy"  or  "cool  and  quiet"  or  "happy  and  dancing."  Then 
they  told  the  story,  various  children  volunteering  and  I  writing  down 
their  remarks,  frequently  reading  back  the  story  as  far  as  it  was  writ- 
ten. We  agreed  to  put  into  the  stories  only  the  things  which  made  us 
feel  "sleepy"  or  "cool  and  quiet"  or  "happy  and  dancing."  The  children 
quickly  became  their  own  critics.  Some  of  the  group  stories  had  real 
literary  merit. 

Second  group  story,  told  on  a  rainy  day:  The  rain  is  falling.  It's 
damp  and  cold.    It's  coming  down  in   flocks.    It's  part  cloudy  and   part 

[19  1 


sunny.  And  it's  half  and  half.  It's  raining  in  New  York,  but  maybe 
not  in  California.  The  rain  goes  pitter-patter  on  the  windows.  It  falls 
on  the  umbrellas.  The  rain  drips  off  the  roofs  on  the  houses.  The  little 
wet  drops  they  fall  on  your  face.  We  all  get  wet.  The  rain  falls  on  the 
ground  and  our  shoes  get  all  wet.  The  rain  falls  on  people's  hats  in  the 
street.  And  the  men  run  when  they  haven't  any  umbrellas.  The  rain 
falls  on  your  rain  hats  and  falls  on  your  face.  Your  foot  hits  a  puddle 
and  the  water  splashes  up  on  your  knee. 


Records  of  Group  Methods  of  Learning 

A  teacher's  record  of  curriculum  functioning  is  not  complete  unless 
she  supplies  information  which  will  show  how  the  children  are  learning 
together.  The  children  work  and  play  together,  and  they  influence  each 
other  as  grown  people  influence  other  grown  people's  ideas  and  actions. 
Realizing  this,  schools  make  provision  for  social  play  time.  Some  schools 
also  make  provision  for  studying  and  learning  together, — a  social  organ- 
ization not  simply  allowed  because  a  class  is  too  large  to  be  taught  as 
isolated  individuals,  but  deliberately  planned  because  learning  together 
is  part  of  the  experience  of  living  together,  which  experience  we  wish  all 
children  to  be  ready  to  share. 

When  the  Director  of  the  City  and  Country  School,  after  visiting 
class-rooms  and  reading  the  teachers'  notes,  sees  a  common  need  for  some 
specific  suggestions  she  sends  them  out  to  the  teachers  in  the  form  of 
bulletins  which  help  the  teachers  both  in  their  teaching  procedure  and  in 
their  recording.  The  bulletin  which  follows  points  up  this  school's 
emphasis  upon  group  discussions  in  each  class  as  a  method  of  organizing 
the  children's  information  and  of  encouraging  the  habit  of  making  their 
own  inquiries. 

Bulletin.  .  .  .  Perhaps  this  is  a  good  place  to  emphasize  the  fact  that 
what  makes  for  social  organization  in  our  school  groups  is:  (1)  the  com- 
mon experiences  the  children  have  in  their  past  and  are  still  working  on; 
(2)  the  organized  body  of  information  which  they  have  and  which  is 
common  to  the  majority  of  the  group.  These  two  things  are  inseparable 
and  can  be  separated  only  for  convenience  in  discussion.  What  we  wish 
to  catch  and  record  is  not  so  much  what  the  children  are  exposed  to  as 
what  they  get.  This  may  be  obtained  only  by  specific  recording  of  discus- 
sons,  activities,  and  inquiries. 

The  use  of  a  group  discussion  period  for  teaching  language  was 
illustrated  in  the  preceding  topic.  A  discussion  period  is  always  a  lan- 
guage period.  The  following  record  also  illustrates  the  teacher's  use  of 
this  opportunity  to  help  the  children  to  organize  their  information  and  to 
plan  their  activities. 

1201 


A  Month's  Summary:  October. — Six-year-old  children.  "Discussions 
have  included  the  school  program,  practical  needs  such  as  .  .  .  the  elec- 
tion and  duties  of  a  class  committee,  .  .  .  marking  the  attendance.  .  .  . 
Other  discussions  have  dealt  with  different  types  of  farms.  .  .  .  All  of 
this  has  centered  very  clearly  around  the  children's  play  schemes.  .  .  . 
The  children's  lead  has  been  followed  rather  than  a  definite  program  of 
information  and  has  led  off  occasionally  from  the  general  subject  of  farms 
to  specific  interests.  .  .  .  The  general  purpose  of  the  discussions  has  been 
to  encourage  language  expression  in  the  group,  and  to  find  out  what  in- 
formation the  children  have  available  for  use  in  their  play  and  to  help 
this  to  function. 

Week  of  February  21 — (Same  class.)  The  last  two  days  of  the  week 
the  discussions  returned  to  the  general  subject  of  geography.  On  Thurs- 
day we  reviewed  the  origin  of  rivers  and  in  particular  the  source  of  the 
Hudson  and  the  way  water  is  brought  from  the  Catskills  to  supply  New 
York  City  in  connection  with — (their  science  teacher's)  illustration  of 
this.  I  read  the  story  of  the  Singing  Water,  recapitulating  the  informa- 
tional material,  and  it  held  their  attention  well.  .  .  .  On  Friday  morning 
the  picture  map  of  the  city  and  harbor  proved  very  absorbing,  and  all 
took  turns  in  very  orderly  fashion.   .    .    . 

Week  of  February  28. — Children  from  five  to  six  years  old.  Enthu- 
siasm was  high  on  Monday  over  the  new  blocks  which  had  been  stacked 
in  the  room  over  the  week-end.  Almost  as  soon  as  he  was  seated  (for 
discussion  of  the  morning's  work)  .  .  .  B.  M.  said,  "Oh,  let's  build  a 
town."  This  fired  the  group,  and  one  said,  "Let's  put  in  a  church,"  an- 
other .  .  .  Since  there  was  now  such  deviation  from  the  first  suggestion 
of  a  town,  I  remarked,  "If  we  are  going  to  put  in  all  of  these  things,  we'd 
better  build  New  York  City."  This  was  taken  up  at  once,  and  I  sent  a 
child  for  a  map.  .  .  .  The  buildings  had  all  been  on  or  near  Broadway 
or  Fifth  Avenue.  I  pointed  out  these  streets  to  the  children  on  the  map. 
We  found  the  north  and  south,  then  discussed  the  best  arrangement  in 
the  room  to  show  uptown  and  downtown.  This  came  readily,  for  we 
have  had  games  of  direction  in  the  room.  .  .  .  The  next  day  I  showed 
the  children  pictures  of  the  buildings  they  had  chosen.  .  .  .  T.  Z.  had 
built  Old  Trinity  the  day  before.  He  had  put  it  downtown,  but  not  on 
Broadway,  and  the  construction  was  not  a  creditable  one.  After  seeing 
the  picture  he  said,  "It  is  going  to  be  different  when  I  take  it  down  and 
build  it  on  Broadway." 

The  scheme  was  a  general  one,  each  child  co-operated  by  making  his 
own  contribution  of  one  or  more  buildings.  .  .  .  Occasionally  two  or 
more  worked  on  the  same  building. 

Week  of  March  7. —  .  .  .  This  (week's)  scheme  as  that  of  the  pre- 
vious week  was  initiated  very  evenly  in  the  group.  The  suggestions  were 
given  rapidly  and  with  excitement.  One  child  did  not  wait  for  another 
to  get  an  idea,  but  was  ready  with  his  own. 

Discussion  time  may  bring  opportunity  for  a  group's  control  of  their 
own  behavior  as  well  as  of  their  work  during  a  free  (undirected)  hour. 
An  observing  teacher's  notes  of  such  an  occasion  are  given  below.  The 
class  of  nine-year-old  children  was  taught  by  Miss  B. 

Before  beginning,  Miss  B.  remarked,  "There  is  a  serious  thing  for 
just   one   hour,   do   you    remember   it?"    Several   children    replied,    "Yes, 

[21  ] 


H.  and  T."  Miss  B.  cautioned,  "Don't  mention  names.  .  .  .  You  all 
understand?"  .  .  .  The  two  boys  then  went  into  the  most  secluded  cor- 
ner of  each  room.  Their  punishment  had  been  chosen  by  themselves,  at 
H.'s  suggestion.  .  .  .  Both  were  very  conscientious.  .  .  .  When  Miss  B. 
called  "Time's  up!"  both  boys  went  quietly  to  look  at  .  .  .  (something 
which  had  been  going  on  during  their  hour  of  punishment,  but  which 
they  had  not  watched). 

A  few  minutes  after  the  announcement  that  the  hour  was  up,  Miss  B. 
said  to  the  class  president,  "They  are  not  putting  away."  Said  J.  (the 
president),  "They  won't  put  them  away."  Miss  B.  laughed  at  a  presi- 
dent's tolerating  this,  and  made  suggestions  how  to  manage.  Then  they 
sat  down  to  report  "whether  you  did,  during  your  free  period,  what  you 
said  you  were  going  to  do;  .  .  .  whether  it  was  something  harder  and 
better  than  before."  There  was  close  attention  to  this  brief  suggestion 
of  Miss  B.'s  and  to  the  reports  from  each  child  about  his  satisfaction 
with  the  work  he  had  done;  close  attention  from  all  but  P.  All  the  chil- 
dren made  reports  that  the  teacher  and  children  were  satisfied  with 
except  P.  and  M.  P.  said  she  was  satisfied  with  the  work  she  had  done, 
and  when  no  one  commented,  Miss  B.  merely  said  she  did  not  agree  with 
her.  M.  said  he  had  nothing  to  say,  and  he  had  to  be  prodded  before 
he  would  give  any  account  of  his  wasted  time. 

Records  of  trips  taken  by  a  group  in  search  of  information  or  on 

errands  to  buy  something  are  very  fruitful  sources  of  information  to  the 

teacher  and  the  school  about  how  and  what  the  children  are  learning 

together;    how   they  are   developing,   through   their  own   spontaneous 

inquiries,  the  habit  of  going  after  the  information  they  want  when  they 

want  it, — going  after  it  themselves,  not  waiting  until  it  is  handed  out  to 

them. 

Week  of  May  9. — Four-year-old  children.  On  Monday  the  children 
went  with  me  to  the  butcher's  on  8th  Street  to  get  meat  for  the  turtles. 
On  the  way  back  they  noticed  men  apparently  mending  the  roadway,  and 
asked  to  look  at  it.  We  crossed  the  street  and  found  three  men  making  a 
square  hole  in  the  ground.  M.  said,  "Why  are  you  doing  that?"  A  man 
replied  that  they  were  trying  to  mend  electric  light  wires.  One  man 
was  holding  an  iron  bar  with  a  sort  of  tongs  while  two  others  hammered 
on  this  to  break  up  the  stone  under  the  roadway.  A.  explained  to  me 
that  the  man  wasn't  holding  the  bar  with  his  hands  for  fear  he  might 
get  hammered.  Some  stones  loosened,  the  workman  leaned  over  and 
picked  out  pieces  with  his  hands.  "Why  doesn't  he  use  a  shovel?"  asked 
M.,  just  before  the  man  did  reach  out  for  his  shovel.  The  men  were  so 
impressed  by  this  time  with  the  children's  intelligence  that  they  told  me 
we  could  see  the  wires  in  a  hole  farther  up  the  street.  .  .  .  T.  remarked 
that  some  trolley  wires  are  above  ground,  so  we  looked  at  the  cable 
between  the  tracks  on  8th  Street. 

Another  group  of  four-year-olds  made  several  trips  to  see  a  concrete 
mixer.  The  teacher  did  not  point  things  out,  she  answered  questions. 
On  their  second  trip,  they  asked  among  other  questions,  "Who  makes 
it  turn  around, — that  man  over  there?"  "How  does  he  open  it?"  The 
same  children  on  another  trip  stopped  to  look  at  a  sewer  being  cleaned. 

[22] 


"Where  is  the  other  pail?"  some  of  them  asked  when  only  one  came  up. 
"How  did  they  make  the  fire?"  in  the  small  iron  stove. 

While  the  extension  of  Seventh  Avenue  was  being  built  the  five- 
year-olds  were  especially  interested  in  watching  its  construction.  The 
following  are  my  summaries  of  their  teacher's  more  detailed  notes  of  their 
many  visits. 

November. — During  the  first  trip  the  children  noticed  the  piles  of 
stones,  dirt,  sand,  etc.  During  their  second  visit  they  were  too  absorbed 
to  raise  inquiries  about  the  wonderful  mixing  machine,  the  men  carting 
stones,  sand  and  cement  to  put  into  it,  and  others  dumping  out  the  mix- 
ture. Miss  M.  let  them  watch  the  whole  show  in  silence  for  fully  twenty 
minutes.  On  the  third  visit  they  were  again  absorbed  and  asked  no  ques- 
tions. They  were  not  asked  any  until  their  return  to  school,  when  it  was 
found  that  every  child  but  one  had  taken  in  all  the  processes  of  the 
machine  and  could  describe  them  accurately. 

December. — On  the  fourth  visit  the  children  remarked,  "Stones  and 
sand  and  cement  all  go  into  the  big  wheel"  .  .  .  "they  get  mixed  up 
inside  the  wheel"  .  .  .  "The  water  gets  into  the  wheel  through  the  rub- 
ber pipe."  They  were  told  the  name  "concrete  mixer."  On  their  return 
to  school  they  gave  separate  accurate  accounts  (except  one  child).  While 
passing  by  some  days  later  bound  for  another  destination  the  children 
called  out  "There's  our  friend!"  When  asked  what  part  of  the  road  the 
mixer  had  been  on  and  where  concrete  had  not  yet  been  deposited,  they 
jumped  up  and  down  and  pointed  to  show  that  they  could  tell  by  feel  as 
well  as  by  their  eyes. 

January. — The  children  pointed  out  to  Miss  G.  where  the  mixer 
had  filled  in,  that  they  could  walk  on  it,  and  that  where  "it  was  only  dirt" 
the  mixer  had  not  been  at  work.  They  told  her  how  the  concrete  was 
made.  On  another  day  they  watched  the  stones  laid,  the  tar  and  then  the 
sand  put  on  top,  and  described  it  all.  Miss  M.  asked  what  would  be  the 
next  thing  they  would  see  on  another  trip  and  some  of  them  shouted 
"Horses  and  automobiles." 

Records  of  Emotion,  of  Fatigue 

Records  of  emotional  states,  of  fatigue,  are  not  available  in  most 
schools.  Sometimes  a  single  incident  of  a  spectacular  type  is  recorded, 
but  no  isolated  occurrence  is  valuable  as  evidence  of  cause.  "I  think  so 
and  so  is  very  bad  for  the  children,"  or  "A.  and  B.  were  very  much  tired 
out  after  ..."  are  the  usual  contributions  to  questions  about  what 
brings  fatigue  or  irritability,  etc.,  in  school.  The  concrete  data,  system- 
atically recorded  over  a  sufficient  period  of  time  are  lacking.  Keeping 
notes  of  many  instances  of  the  emotion  in  question,  with  the  surrounding 
circumstances,  is  the  only  method  which  will  produce  evidence  upon 
which  we  can  base  our  judgements. 

The  matter  of  fatigue  is  given  a  good  deal  of  attention  in  private 
schools  where  doctors  and  psychologists  assist  the  teachers.     But  specific 

[23  1 


data  of  experiences  in  school  are  not  often  at  hand.  A  teacher,  B.,  said, 
"Whenever  I  go  into  A.'s  room  I  am  impressed  by  the  quiet  and  good 
order  everywhere.  My  children  are  so  often  noisy ;  I  am  sure  I  let  them 
get  too  excited."  She  was  asked  what  she  had  recorded ;  had  she  notes 
that  showed  which  activities  aroused  excitement;  whether  they  always 
did  so;  which  children  were  most  excited,  how  they  showed  it;  etc.  She 
had  some  notes  in  answer  to  the  last  question,  but  nothing  adequate  upon 
any.  She  had  very  full  notes  of  individual  cases  of  excitement  but  the 
complete  conditions  were  not  noted.  There  was  not  an  accurate  follow- 
ing up  to  show  whether  there  was  repetition  under  similar  conditions, 
nor  how  the  children  in  the  other  teacher's  room  reacted  under  similar 
conditions. 

This  question  of  excitement  and  fatigue  was  often  brought  up  by 
A,  B,  and  other  teachers  during  several  years.  They  questioned  their 
own  procedures  or  criticized  the  environment;  and  they  made  some 
changes,  by  guess  not  by  concrete  evidence.  They  asked  and  accepted 
advice  from  the  doctor  and  the  psychologist.  But  no  decisions  were 
reached. — there  were  not  sufficient  data  to  make  sure  of  anything,  there 
was  only  vague  opinion.  The  only  suggestive  contribution  was  made  at 
a  meeting  when  A.  and  B.  each  read  her  record  of  the  content  of  her 
group's  activities, — the  information  they  used  and  how  they  used  it.  The 
contrast  in  richness  of  content  and  in  productive  activity  was  strong  and 
in  favor  of  B.'s  class.  The  query  then  narrowed  to,  "Which  is  better  for 
children  of  this  age,  the  rich  experience  going  on  in  B.'s  room,  or  the 
much  less  active  but  serene  and  quiet  experience  in  A.'s  room?"  There 
was  no  evidence  to  answer  this  question  in  regard  to  fatigue. 

An  interesting  beginning  has  been  made  in  recording  emotional 
states  by  the  Nursery  School.  Notes  are  taken  to  determine  just  what 
produces  strain  in  individuals  and  in  the  group,  so  that  changes  may  be 
made  in  the  environment  as  indicated.  The  following  illustrations  of 
their  recording  are  especially  admirable  in  the  way  points  made  in  a  pre- 
ceding summary  are  followed  up: 

Week  of  January  24. — The  children  play  together  with  almost  no 
friction  or  crying,  a  very  different  atmosphere  without  J.  (one  of  the 
oldest  children.) 

Summary  at  end  of  January. — Integration  of  group  seems  still 
further  advanced,  that  is,  the  integration  of  the  two  groups  each  within 
itself.  There  is  a  very  distinct  line  dividing  the  babies  from  the  older 
children  (two  or  three  years).  The  friendliest  relations  prevail  between 
groups,  and  the  "Bigs"  show  great  forbearance  with  the  little  ones  who 
naturally  interfere  considerably.    .    .    . 

Summary  at  end  of  March.— As  a  whole  the  group  atmosphere  is 
serene  moot  of  the  time  since   I.  left. 

I  24  1 


Records  of  Equipment 

A  school's  equipment  is  a  significant  part  of  the  environment  which 
provides  experience  for  the  children.  It  is  used  by  the  children ;  and  a 
record  of  how  they  use  it,  what  experience  they  get  out  of  it,  is  necessary 
if  we  wish  to  know  whether  the  equipment  we  have  supplied  to  the 
children  has  contributed  to  their  growth,  and  whether  we  shall  continue 
to  use  it. 

A  school  cannot  afford  to  guess  at  the  usefulness  of  its  material  set- 
up. Teachers  must  record  what  use  has  been  made  of  the  materials  pro- 
vided when  they  ask  for  more  or  when  they  ask  for  changes.  A  teacher 
of  six-year-old  children  was  asked  whether  she  needed  more  blocks.  "Yes," 
she  replied,  but  when  further  inquiries  were  made  as  to  how  many  more, 
she  did  not  know.  She  did  not  know  whether  they  were  used  for  social 
play  or  quite  individually.  Another  teacher  said  she  needed  no  more 
blocks,  yet  a  frequent  visitor  had  noticed  repeatedly  that  the  same  two 
or  three  boys  used  up  all  the  blocks  before  anyone  else  had  a  chance  to 
get  at  them.  A  teacher  of  the  same  grade  in  the  City  and  Country 
School  reported  specifically  that  she  needed  twice  as  many  blocks  and 
gave  the  sizes  she  wanted.  She  had  recorded  and  followed  up  for  weeks 
to  find  out  which  children  used  the  blocks,  how  many  used  them  at  the 
same  time,  at  what  stage  in  the  building  the  blocks  were  apt  to  give  out, 
and  how  worth  while  was  the  activity  that  the  blocks  commonly 
stimulated. 

A  teacher  of  six-year-olds  in  another  school  asked  for  more  balls. 
She  had  no  record  of  use  and  was  disconcerted  when  she  was  asked 
whether  the  balls  were  used  individually  or  in  group  play.  She  was 
further  confused  by  the  question  whether  the  same  children  used  them 
each  time.  She  had  never  been  asked  such  questions  before.  "I  guess 
so,"  was  all  she  could  reply.  Requests  for  more  equipment  are  based 
upon  guesswork  in  many  schools.  Another  teacher  noted,  "two  long 
chains  were  added  to  the  yard  equipment  to-day,  and  greatly  delighted 
the  children.  Their  first  use  was  .  .  .  Later  the  chain  was  attached 
.  .  .  Still  later  .  .  .,  etc."  This  was  a  promising  beginning  to  work 
from,  to  report  changes  in  use.  But  these  chains  were  not  mentioned 
again  in  this  teacher's  notes.  If  they  were  never  used  again,  a  statement 
of  just  this  fact  would  have  been  adequate  for  further  inquiry  at  least. 

A  systematic  recording  of  the  concrete  facts,  followed  up  to  report 
changes  or  nonchanges  of  use,  is  the  only  method  of  getting  reliable  data 
about  school  materials.  The  following  illustrations  are  from  the  notes 
of  teachers  in  the  City  and  Country  School.     These  notes  were  not 

[25] 


written  to  report  the  use  of  materials  only;  they  were  part  of  each 
teacher's  regular  weekly  summary.  Each  summary  was  a  record  of 
how  the  children  had  been  learning  during  that  week  and  how  the  cur- 
riculum had  functioned  to  stimulate  their  learning  processes. 

Week  of  March  7. — Four-year-olds.  Block  building.  The  squares, 
half  squares,  prisms  and  cylinders  introduced  last  week  were  the  only 
blocks  used  this  week  and  they  brought  about  entirely  new  types  of  con- 
struction. Towers  were  made  several  days  of  the  week.  .  .  .  M.  was 
able  to  place  her  blocks  so  accurately  that  her  tower,  which  was  about 
five  inches  above  my  head,  remained  standing  all  morning.  The  upper 
half  was  made  entirely  of  the  small  cylinders.  M.  A.  and  A.  tried  to 
imitate  the  towers,  but  .    .   .  ,  etc. 

Week  of  Feb.  7. — Six-year-olds.  Yard  play.  Outdoors  the  play  in  the 
morning  has  been  principally  with  the  big  slide  and  knotted  rope,  and 
"jumping"'  on  the  swing.  D.  is  now  completely  a  part  of  the  social  group. 
.  .  .  He  and  C.  have  played  together  in  a  box  house  every  afternoon, 
using  the  big  blocks  for  furniture  and  stairs,  and  building  a  roof  of 
boards.  M.  and  S.  have  found  a  congenial  interest  in  ...  E.  and  CI. 
played  together  on  the  slide  a  good  deal,  inventing  games  like  last 
week  .   .   .  ,  etc. 

Week  of  March  7. — Six-year-olds.  Shop.  In  the  shop  most  of  the 
children  are  working  on  articles  wanted  for  specific  purposes,  like  a  box 
to  plant  flowers  in  at  home,  toy  furniture  for  doll  houses  .  .  .  ,  a  bird 
house  .    .   .,  and  a  bread  board. 

Week  of  January  31. — Three-year-olds.  The  slide.  A  new  game 
developed.  J.  B.  and  D  started  it,  P.  and  J.  F.  joined:  another  step  in 
J.  F.'s  better  physical  activity.  (The  game  was  described  in  detail  here.) 
They  all  tumbled  off  together  in  gales  of  laughter.  J.  F. :  "Oh,  isn't  it 
fine!"  More  abandon  by  him  than  I  have  ever  seen  before.  Great  aban- 
don by  J.  B.  going  down  slide  backwards.  No  other  child  has  done  this, 
though  a  few  have  announced  that  they  wanted  to  and  have  climbed  the 
steps  to  the  top  of  the  slide  for  that  purpose  but  have  changed  their 
minds  when  actual  time  came  for  letting  go  their  hands. 

Records  of  the  curriculum, — of  subject  matter,  materials,  etc.,  kept 
by  one  school  will  be  invaluable  to  other  schools  having  children  of  the 
same  age.  Mistakes  and  discoveries  by  one  are  enlightening  to  another 
school.  There  should  be  a  free  interchange  of  such  records  between 
schools. 


[26 


RECORDS  OF  INDIVIDUAL  CHILDREN 

Traditional  Opinion  or  Concrete  Data  as  Basis  for  Changes 
in  Environment 

Our  experiment  in  recording  held  to  the  same  guiding  principles 
and  the  same  standards  for  observing  individual  children  that  we  used  in 
records  of  the  curriculum.  The  discussion  of  records  of  individuals  will 
repeat  many  of  the  same  arguments,  and  the  illustrations  used  will  often 
be  records  of  curriculum  as  well  as  of  individuals.  As  I  have  said  before, 
this  repetition  is  necessary  for  the  purpose  of  answering  the  question 
which  is  so  frequently  being  asked  by  school  people,  "How  can  we  make 
children's  reports  give  real  information?" 

Our  experience  proved  for  us  that  the  same  data  are  needed  for 
information  concerning  individual  children  as  for  the  curriculum,  and 
that  neither  record  will  give  full  and  clear  information  if  these  two 
points  of  view  are  kept  separate.  When  we  wish  to  take  intelligent 
action,  in  the  case  of  individuals  or  to  change  the  environment,  we  must 
have  concrete  data  of  the  children's  own  activities ;  we  must  observe  and 
record  processes  of  growth  in  school ;  we  must  report  group  responses  in 
order  to  tell  the  whole  story;  and  the  teacher  is  the  only  recorder  who 
can  approach  a  recording  of  the  whole  environment  and  can  estimate  its 
importance  in  terms  of  continuous  experience. 

Grown  people's  judgments  are  seldom  based  upon  closely  observed 
activities  of  children.  The  most  well  informed  of  us  still  judge  the 
behavior  or  the  scholastic  achievements  of  children  in  school  more  or  less 
by  traditional  standards.  We  are  dependent  upon  what  we,  in  common 
with  most  other  people,  believe  a  child  "should"  learn,  and  how  he 
"should"  behave.  As  in  the  case  of  the  curriculum,  we  have  only  recently 
begun  to  doubt,  to  suspect  that  our  traditional  ideas  about  children  may 
be  mistaken.  We  have  only  recently  begun  to  watch  the  responses  of 
the  children  themselves  in  order  to  discover  what  these  responses  really 
mean.  We  are  beginning  to  find  out  that  they  frequently  mean  some- 
thing quite  different  from  what  we  have  supposed,  and  that  our  action  in 
regard  to  these  responses  must  be  quite  different  from  the  action  we  have 
been  in  the  habit  of  taking. 

When  we  wish  to  understand  a  child  we  must  observe  not  only  his 
responses,  but  what  it  is  in  the  environment  (so  far  as  we  can  see)  which 
stimulates  these  responses, — these  behaviors  and  interests  and  accom- 
plishments. Perhaps  something  other  than  what  tradition  has  taught  is 
the  real  source  of  stimulus.     Some  non-scholastic  people  go  so  far  as  to 

[27] 


say  that  the  most  valuable  training,  the  most  important  experiences  for 
living  the  lives  we  all  have  to  live,  come  not  from  school  but  from  out- 
side of  school.  Schools  have  not  looked  upon  themselves  in  this  light; 
but  if  it  be  true,  it  is  a  challenge  which  the  schools  must  answer.  They 
must  find  out  what  share  the  schools  should  take  in  supplying  oppor- 
tunities for  these  experiences.  Psychologists  have  recently  made  large 
contributions  to  our  knowledge  of  how  we  learn,  of  what  teaches  us. 
Teachers  have  contributed  little ;  in  fact  engineers  and  other  business 
men  have  contributed  more  by  showing  their  dissatisfaction  with  the 
uneducated  products  which  the  schools  turn  out. 

Psychologists  are  more  and  more  commonly  basing  their  judgments 
upon  concrete  data,  less  and  less  upon  subjective  inferences  of  what  is 
probably  the  matter.  A  teacher  must  follow  the  same  method.  She 
must  follow  it  for  herself.  She  cannot,  even  in  schools  where  a  psychol- 
ogist is  part  of  the  school  staff,  wait  for  the  psychologist's  examinations. 
She  needs  to  know  too  often,  she  needs  to  know  what  to  do.  Moreover 
it  is  the  teacher  alone  who  has  opportunity  to  see  the  children's  day-after- 
day  behavior,  and  their  influence  upon  each  other.  She  is  responsible  for 
changes  in  the  school  environment  which  shall  bring  continued  progress 
for  each  of  her  children.  She  must  depend  upon  her  concrete  data  for 
information  that  will  indicate  what  changes  she  should  make  in  the 
school  environment. 

The  measure  of  a  child's  growth  (for  a  teacher's  purposes)  is  his 
progress  in  ability  to  use  his  environment  to  satisfy  his  own  purposes. 
This  was  our  standard  of  what  we  must  observe  to  know  whether  growth 
is  taking  place.  It  is  his  own  experiences  which  teach  him,  it  is  the  satis- 
faction of  his  own  purposes  which  brings  experiences  to  him ;  it  is  these 
experiences  which  a  teacher  must  watch  and  record  if  she  wishes  to 
understand  him.  The  environment  that  a  child  uses,  through  which  he 
gets  his  experiences,  consists  of  people  as  well  as  things,  and  his  desires 
are  both  social  and  material.  It  is  the  school's  business  to  provide  the 
material  and  social  setting  which  shall  supply  each  child  with  an  environ- 
ment which  he  can  use  and  which  the  school  can  change  to  fit  his  grow- 
ing needs.  It  is  the  school's  business  to  know  whether  these  needs  are 
being  satisfied.  It  can  only  know  by  the  help  of  concrete  records  of  the 
children's  activities. 

The  recording  of  children's  activities,  of  their  processes  of  learning 
and  growing,  for  the  sake  of  having  a  reliable  basis  for  making  changes 
in  the  school  environment,  is  chiefly  for  the  school's  own  information. 
These  records  relieve  the  home  of  no  responsibility  for  changes  which  the 
home  makes.     But  they  form  a  basis  for  bringing  home  and  school  into 

(28  1 


cooperation  instead  of  into  conflict,  which  percentage  reports,  for  ex- 
ample, so  often  do  just  because  they  convey  no  real  information  and  in 
consequence  are  confusing  and  misleading.  The  City  and  Country  School 
and  the  Nursery  School  have  been  working  upon  reports  to  parents  and 
reports  from  parents.  These  reports  are  based  upon  the  teachers'  and 
the  parents'  concrete  notes  of  the  children's  responses  to  the  school  and 
the  home  environments.  These  schools  have  worked  upon  home  reports 
independently  of  the  experiment  now  being  discussed  and  further  dis- 
cussion of  that  topic  will  not  be  undertaken  here. 

A  teacher's  record  of  her  children  takes  into  account  those  home  con- 
ditions which  may  be  responsible  for  each  child's  methods  of  attack  upon 
his  school  environment,  for  his  attitude  in  general;  but  her  judgment 
should  be  formed  and  her  procedure  determined  chiefly  by  what  she  her- 
self sees  and  by  what  she  can  control.  Her  record  must  be  critical  of  the 
school  environment,  including  herself,  before  it  is  critical  of  the  child ; 
and  it  should  be  critical  of  the  child  only  for  the  purpose  of  finding  out 
what  she  can  do  in  the  situation. 

"Elizabeth  is  lazy  and  stops  before  she  gets  her  work  finished,"  is  a 
kind  of  report  that  is  often  sent  on  to  the  next  teacher  or  even  to  a 
parent.  If  this  is  to  rise  above  the  level  of  mere  fault  finding  it  must  tell 
a  good  deal  more.  What  kind  of  work  is  it  that  she  avoids  doing,  is 
there  none  she  does  well?  Does  she  work  better  when  alone  or  when 
with  other  children?  How  do  the  other  children  behave  towards  her? 
Does  she  show  her  idleness  ("lazy"  is  an  inaccurate  term  to  apply  to 
children)  by  dreaming?  Or  by  doing  something  else  than  the  work  in 
hand,  or  by  talking?  How  were  the  other  children  behaving  in  the  same 
situation?  What  has  the  teacher  done  to  alter  the  behavior?  Unless  a 
new  teacher  has  answers  to  these  questions,  she  will  have  to  work  them 
out  for  herself ;  the  mere  statement  as  quoted  above  will  convey  no  real 
information  and  would  better  be  left  unsaid.  If  the  first  teacher  has 
taken  notes  showing  the  conditions  and  how  the  other  children  reacted, 
and  if  for  each  child  she  passes  on  to  another  teacher  she  gives  page  and 
paragraph  of  these  notes,  she  will  be  giving  invaluable  information.  The 
new  teacher  will  also  be  finding  out  about  the  other  children  at  the  same 
time,  she  will  be  seeing  them  in  contrast  with  Elizabeth ;  and  if  the  first 
teacher  is  a  good  reporter  she  will  see  what  methods  have  failed  with 
Elizabeth,  and  will  have  some  basis  for  choosing  a  different  procedure. 

A  teacher's  account  of  Elizabeth  or  of  John  must  contain  a  descrip- 
tion of  how  the  child  works,  what  he  is  curious  about,  in  what  ways  he 
is  like  or  unlike  his  companions.  The  account  must  be  continuous; 
that  is,  it  must  follow  up  a  significant  action  and  state  whether  it  develops 

[29] 


and  how.  This  account  of  John  must  show  how  he  grows,  how  he  learns 
among  the  other  children  who  are  also  learning,  learning  in  a  different 
way  from  John  perhaps,  and  at  a  different  pace,  with  interruptions  to 
their  learning  which  are  not  the  same  as  John's.  Is  this  too  difficult  a 
task  to  set  a  teacher?  The  ordinary  markings  by  percentages,  or  the 
newer  character  studies,  take  a  great  deal  of  time  if  conscientiously  under- 
taken, and  they  tell  very  little  to  the  next  teacher  when  they  reach  her. 
The  new  teacher  is  obliged  to  go  to  the  other  teacher  to  obtain  more 
information,  when  she  wishes  information  which  will  be  full  enough  to 
act  upon. 

The  first  essential  difference  between  our  records  and  those  in 
common  use  is  the  difference  in  responsibility.  Most  reports  of  children 
throw  the  emphasis  upon  what  is  the  matter  with  the  child ;  our  reason 
for  making  records  is  to  show  what  is  the  matter  with  the  environment 
and  to  change  it.  Even  if  we  are  satisfied  with  an  environment  for  the 
time  being,  we  know  it  must  change,  it  cannot  stay  as  it  is  because  the 
children  change ;  they  change  enough  to  call  for  some  different  approach 
or  material  every  week  at  least.  A  teacher  must  be  on  the  lookout  for 
changes  in  the  children  and  be  ready  to  provide  some  variation  for  each 
child. 

Re-reading  her  notes  will  convince  any  teacher  that  she  cannot  trust 
her  memory  for  each  child's  learning  processes.  She  must  take  notes,  and 
keep  referring  to  them ;  she  must  know  what  his  changes  of  activity  or 
attitude  have  been  and  what  influences  have  brought  about  his  changes. 
A  teachers'  meeting  was  called  in  the  middle  of  a  school  year  to  discuss 
several  children.  One  was  reported  as  very  unruly  at  home  but  not  at  all 
troublesome  in  school.  The  home  wished  advice  about  managing  him. 
Specific  misbehavior  at  home  was  mentioned  and  the  class  teacher  was 
asked  whether  he  had  shown  none  of  this  when  he  entered  school  in  the 
fall.  "None  at  all,"  she  replied,  yet  her  first  notes  of  the  child  were  of 
just  such  conduct.  She  had  not  looked  up  her  notes.  She  had  for- 
gotten the  child's  early  behavior  because  her  action  at  the  time  had  so 
readily  brought  about  a  changed  attitude.  She  did  not  remember  that 
he  had  ever  been  a  problem.  Nevertheless  this  very  fact  was  a  valuable 
one  to  report  to  the  meeting  and  to  his  mother  as  showing  what  the 
teacher's  management  and  the  school  environment  had  done  for  the  child. 

Individual  Records  Must  be  Records  of  Group  Reactions 

The  second  essential  difference  between  our  records  and  others  is 
the  fact  that  we  do  not  separate  individual  records  from  records  of  th? 
group.     We  claim  that  they  cannot  be  separated.     Individual  records 

[301 


must  be  records  of  the  group  if  they  are  to  give  a  clear  picture  of  the  in- 
dividual working  and  playing,  learning  and  growing  with  the  other  chil- 
dren who  are  associated  with  him.  The  other  children  are  part  of  his 
environment;   their  activities  have  a  share  in  his  growth. 

We  experimented  for  a  short  time  with  separate  individual  notes 
until  we  realized  that  separate  notes  of  each  child  are  confusing  to  the 
teacher.  Notes  of  the  activity  of  the  group  as  a  whole  are  necessary  for 
an  understanding  of  an  individual's  reactions  to  the  school  environment. 
It  is  necessary  for  the  teacher  to  observe  group  situations  and  to  record 
them  in  concrete  form  for  comparison  and  reference,  if  she  wishes  to  have 
a  true  picture  of  the  child  in  school.  When  she  wishes  to  pass  on  to  the 
next  teacher  a  report  which  will  suggest  how  the  new  teacher  shall 
manage  him,  she  must  show  how  the  other  children  were  reacting  at  the 
same  time  under  the  same  circumstances. 

Summary  for  October. — Four-year-old  children.  There  is  a  good 
deal  of  difference  in  the  children's  ability  in  handling  their  clothing, 
which  ties  up  with  their  general  facility  in  using  their  hands.  All  can 
take  off  their  own  hats  and  coats,  but  some  are  much  slower  than  others. 
Marie  still  retains  her  pride  in  the  speed  with  which  she  accomplishes 
the  operations,  and  her  triumphant  "I  beat  you"  has  hurried  up  the  slow 
ones  and  added  interest  to  the  whole  proceeding.  There  has  been  a  spe- 
cial problem  with  one  little  boy  who  really  seemed  to  suffer  from  a  com- 
plex in  regard  to  clothes.  This  was  manifested  by  extreme  sulkiness  and 
negativism.  His  usual  behavior  was  to  get  into  a  corner  and  pretend  to 
be  a  turtle  or  lion,  instead  of  going  to  work  as  the  other  children  did.  A 
new  method  of  treatment  was  decided  on,  i.  e.,  not  to  mention  clothes  at 
all  until  he  had  become  interested  in  an  occupation  .  .  .  (other  details 
and  child's  responses.)  Since  then  there  has  been  no  difficulty  at  all.  I 
am  careful  not  to  ask  him  directly  to  take  off  his  things,  but  usually  he 
does  so  when  the  other  children  do. 

The  reports  of  Marie  and  the  little  boy  would  not  be  complete  with- 
out the  comparison  with  the  other  children.  A  new  teacher  has  the  infor- 
mation that  this  group  of  four-year-olds  has  a  certain  facility  with  theii 
hands,  but  that  they  varied  very  much  in  their  willingness  to  take  care 
of  their  own  clothes.  She  also  has  a  clear  idea  of  a  method  of  managing 
the  boy  which  will  be  useful  if  he  reverts  to  old  habits  while  in  her  class. 
She  sees,  as  well,  the  influence  of  Marie's  skill  (or  perhaps  it  was  her 
energy)  upon  the  slower  children;   they  learned  something  from  her. 

The  social  environment  determines  individual  progress, — for  adults 
and  for  children.  The  race  has  lived  in  groups  because  of  the  stimulus  of 
social  experience;  the  give  and  take  which  follows  from  social  contact, 
from  relating  experiences  as  they  are  alike  or  different,  and  as  they  are 
repeated  by  the  group.  If  this  be  true  of  adult  life  it  must  be  true  of 
children.     We  wish  them  to  live  a  socially  active  life,  consequently  we 

[31  1 


send  them  to  school  with  other  children.  A  record  of  an  individual's 
progress  must  then  include  environment,  must  show  enough  of  the  gen- 
eral activity  going  on  in  the  group  to  report  what  sort  of  stimuli  arouses 
the  individual  to  inquiry  and  effort  and  what  does  not,  what  contribu- 
tions he  makes  to  the  group  activity,  how  he  makes  them,  and  how  he  is 
learning  to  make  more  inquiries  and  more  contributions.  When  a  teacher 
studies  one  child  at  a  time  or  writes  up  each  child  separately,  she  focuses 
her  attention  upon  the  one  child,  not  upon  the  child  plus  the  social  and 
material  environment  within  which  his  behavior  took  place. 

The  Nursery  School,  with  children  three  years  old  and  younger, 
makes  very  careful  records  of  the  children's  experiences,  their  learning 
processes.  The  contrast  between  the  following  children  is  informing  of 
both.  In  this  case  the  "group"  happened  to  consist  of  only  the  two 
children. 

Weekly  summary,  May  23. — George  made  a  very  complicated  three- 
story  construction  about  two  feet  long.  The  big  blocks  were  laid  length- 
wise, short  ones  were  placed  across  them  and  triangles.  Edward  still 
tends  to  the  helterskelter  piling.  This  week,  in  his  first  attempt,  he  seemed 
to  continue  intentional  much  longer  than  usual.  He  announced  he  would 
make  a  train.  He  laid  about  12  blocks  in  a  long  track  and  then  George, 
whose  specialty  is  that  type  of  construction,  joined  him  and  they  worked 
together  for  ten  minutes  or  more  laying  a  wonderful  track.  In  some 
places  it  was  seven  or  eight  tiers  high.  ...  It  was  amusing  to  see 
George  straighten  a  block  put  in  crooked  by  the  temperamental  Edward. 
Their  method  of  work  is  very  different.  George  works  with  absorption 
and  is  meticulous  over  details  .  .  .  but  his  schemes  are  not  likely  to  be 
bold.  Edward  enjoys  doing  a  stunt.  His  towers  were  well  executed  and 
he  showed  some  skill  in  devising  ways  of  placing  blocks  after  he  could  no 
longer  reach  the  top.  On  the  other  hand  it  took  him  longer  than  it  did 
George  to  discriminate  in  the  size.  Experience  teaches  Edward  without 
his  taking  much  responsibility  about  it. 

We  do  not  become  informed  about  a  child  when  we  study  him 
alone.  We  may  record  what  he  is  doing  when  alone  and  how  he  does  it, 
but  we  do  not  know  him.  We  may  catch  some  of  his  characteristics,  but 
we  can  know  his  possibilities  only  when  we  see  him  working  with  his 
kind  with  whom  he  must  live.  A  teacher  of  a  five-year-old  class  reported 
many  weeks  of  active  block  building.  The  children's  play  was  rich  and 
varied  in  its  informational  content  and  its  constructions.  Almost  even 
child  took  part  in  this  building.  The  exceptions  noted  were  significant; 
but  without  the  notes  of  the  responses  of  the  group  as  a  whole  they  would 
have  been  of  no  value  except  to  report  that  there  were  exceptions.  The 
first  and  second  paragraphs  noted  below  illustrate  this  teacher's  notes  of 
the  building  during  two  weeks.  The  next  paragraphs  show  the  same 
class  at  dramatic  play  in  the  yard.     Different  children  are  emphasized  in 

(32  1 


the  two  settings,  in  these  particular  weeks  because  they  stood  out  as  react- 
ing differently. 

Week  of  March  21. — Building.  When  boats  were  suggested  as  the 
objective  in  block  building  for  the  week  .  .  .  one  child  suggested  that  the 
boats  go  to  the  West  Indies.  (The  children  had  seen  a  West  Indian  boat 
during  a  trip  to  the  docks.)  This  was  agreed  upon.  ...  All  kinds  of 
craft  were  built.  .  .  .  Grace  modified  her  boat,  however,  putting  on 
many  passengers  and  dressing  them  up.  Though  she  was  co-operating  in 
the  floor  scheme,  the  dressing  of  the  dolls  was,  I  believe,  more  her  interest 
than  the  boat  and  its  destination. 

Week  of  April  4. — Building.  Contributions  (to  the  discussion  of 
trains  and  boats)  came  from  all  the  children  with  rapidity  and  enthusi- 
asm. .  .  .  My  suggestion  met  with  approval  and  going  around  the  circle 
each  chose  what  his  contribution  would  be,  except  Grace  who  chose  to 
build  a  house.  She  seemed  utterly  outside  the  spirit  of  the  class.  It  is 
difficult  to  think  of  any  child  being  able  to  withstand  the  enthusiasm  of 
this  group. 

Week  of  April  4. — Yard  Play.  The  yard  play  has  been  very  intent 
and  interesting  all  week.  The  constructions  of  blocks,  or  boxes  and  blocks, 
were  made  in  order  that  dramatic  play  could  be  carried  on.  Very  often 
the  dramatic  activity  is  taking  place  or  being  planned  during  the  course 
of  the  building.  .  .  .  Jervis  plays  well  alone,  building  with  blocks,  mak- 
ing boats  or  houses.  He  has  a  great  desire  to  be  included  in  more  social 
play  and  appeals  to  me.  I  am  endeavoring  to  have  him  accomplish  the 
social  contact  himself  in  so  far  as  it  is  feasible.  However,  when  he  invites 
other  children  to  play  with  him  he  does  not  make  his  requests  attractive 
and  hence  meets  with  no  response.  If  he  wishes  to  join  the  play  of  a 
group  he  goes  right  in  it  without  making  any  request  to  be  allowed  to 
play.  This  annoys  the  others  at  once.  .  .  .  He  makes  no  contributions 
when  he  gets  in,  but  I  believe  this  will  come  since  he  shows  good  content 
in  his  own  play. 

Week  of  May  9. — Jervis  built  well  alone  and  occasionally  has  made 
a  satisfactory  contact  with  other  children.  He  is  apt  to  play  with  the 
others  expecting  them  to  carry  out  his  directions  or  to  allow  him  to  be  in 
the  play  without  contributing  ideas  or  help, — consequently  he  is  not  in- 
cluded long  and  finds  it  hard  to  be  included  at  all. 

A  teacher  of  a  country  school  discovered  by  experience  that  records 
of  group  activities  gave  her  far  more  information  about  her  children  than 
records  of  individuals.  The  teacher  was  new  to  the  school  and  began  by 
keeping  notes  of  the  character  study  type  (a  rather  new  method  in  those 
days, — some  years  ago).  She  also  kept  notes  of  their  academic  work 
along  the  usual  lines.  All  of  these  notes  were  separate  individual  records. 
She  studied  these  records  separately  and  drew  subjective  inferences  con- 
cerning each  child's  behavior,  in  his  school  work,  on  the  playground,  and 
what  she  knew  of  his  home.  But  she  did  not  find  these  records  helpful. 
She  was  confused,  she  could  not  keep  connections  in  mind,  and  she  did 
not  get  help  in  making  changes  which  she  was  sure  were  needed  both 
indoors  and  out.  This  was  especially  true  of  the  two  oldest  boys,  Leonard 

[33  I 


and  Randall;  she  knew  something  was  ineffective  but  she  did  not  know 
what  it  was. 

For  a  different  purpose,  that  of  making  a  special  study  of  play,  the 
teacher  took  concrete  notes  of  the  whole  group  while  they  were  on  the 
playground.  The  fact  that  small  groups  remained  constant  over  a  period 
of  many  days  became  evident,  and  the  teacher  discovered  that  the  in- 
dividual composition  of  these  groups,  and  the  relationships  of  the  groups 
to  each  other,  were  of  great  value  in  judging  the  character  of  each  child. 

The  two  big  boys,  thirteen  and  fourteen,  when  studied  as  isolated 
individuals,  had  not  shown  the  teacher  what  was  the  matter  with  them, 
nor  what  she  could  do  to  bring  about  changes  in  attitude.  She  had  also 
kept  trying  to  see  them  in  the  light  of  outside  public  opinion,  and  the 
reports  preceding  teachers  had  left.  These  opinions  were  that  Leonard 
was  a  trustworthy  leader  and  a  good  student,  while  Randall  was  the 
village  bad  boy  who  came  to  school  only  because  his  father  forced  him. 
The  teacher's  individual  studies  had  thrown  doubt  upon  these  opinions, 
but  they  gave  little  information  except  that  the  bad  boy  had  done  nothing 
bad  so  far,  and  that  the  good  boy  took  no  interest  in  his  studies.  The 
teacher  got  no  clue  to  understanding  and  handling  the  situation  ade- 
quately until  she  studied  her  continuous  notes  of  a  group  activity.  Here 
there  were  noted  enough  interrelationships  between  varying  situations 
and  personalities  to  show  up  both  boys  in  considerable  relief.  Leonard 
was  mean;  he  got  the  younger  children  to  run  after  his  balls  and  he 
usurped  all  the  desired  positions.  Randall  was  generous  towards  the 
younger  children,  taught  them  the  games,  comforted  them  when  their 
feelings  were  hurt  and  encouraged  them  to  be  good  sports.  Randall  and 
Leonard  were  not  particularly  good  friends  on  the  playground. 

The  teacher  began  to  observe  these  two  boys,  and  the  other  children, 
as  groups,  at  work  together.  She  did  not  allow  herself  to  form  judg- 
ments about  individual  occurrences  nor  individual  children  until  she  had 
observed  them  working  together  repeatedly  under  similar  conditions. 
That  is,  she  observed  and  recorded  continuous  group  activities.  She  was 
able  therefore  to  draw  positive  instead  of  negative  conclusions,  conclu- 
sions which  were  based  upon  a  series  of  concrete  related  facts, — evidence, 
not  opinion.  She  found  Leonard,  for  example,  expert  in  devices  for 
deceiving  her  about  the  work  he  had  done.  Randall  would  cover  up 
nothing  from  a  teacher  he  liked.  The  teacher  had  sensed  this  before,  but 
she  had  not  taken  the  right  way  to  get  the  evidence.  Her  action,  follow- 
ing these  positive  leads,  was  direct  and  in  time  brought  results  she  had 
not  been  able  to  get  before. 

A  teacher  of  nine-year-old  children,  after  overcoming  several  diffi- 

(34  1 


culties  in  her  children's  play  in  the  yard,  read  over  her  rough  notes  and 
summarized  the  situation  at  that  date  in  regard  to  each  child.  This  sum- 
mary forms  an  excellent  basis  for  a  continued  following  up  and  reporting 
upon  the  progress  of  each  one. 

November-December. — Tom  was  then  the  best  athlete,  Martha  and 
Ellen  entered  into  the  games  with  most  abandon.  James,  Violet  and 
Frank  were  good  sportsmen.  Edmund  played  at  this  time  with  great  zest 
but  had  not  much  muscular  control.  .  .  .  Jack,  who  at  first  was  often 
accidentally  hurt,  and  who  liked  to  play  alone,  had  become  quite  one  of 
the  group.  .  .  .  Edwin  still  had  a  tendency  to  take  it  easy,  giving  up  a 
chase  if  he  saw  near  the  start  he  hadn't  much  of  a  show.  Henry  enjoyed 
play  but  wanted  to  be  "it"  most  of  the  time.  .  .  .  Mary  and  John  fitted 
in  nicely  with  no  outstanding  characteristics. 

A  final  summary  at  the  end  of  the  year  by  the  same  teacher  contains 
the  following  partial  report  of  the  children's  drawing  and  painting.  This 
report  would  be  complete  only  when  accompanied  by  the  actual  paintings 
made  by  the  children,  and  when  preceded  by  an  account  of  their  begin- 
nings, their  progress  and  what  teaching  or  help  they  had  had. 

Judging  from  the  hundreds  of  drawings,  I  think  we  have  succeeded 
in  getting  free  expression,  and  in  the  case  of  A.,  B.,  C,  D.,  and  E.  I 
think  I  can  say  that  the  majority  of  their  drawings  and  paintings  have 
been  real  art  expressions.  F.,  G.,  H.,  I.,  and  J.  have  also  produced  some 
pictures  worthy  of  mention. 

One  interesting  characteristic  of  the  drawings  produced  this  year  has 
been  the  type  of  subject  chosen.  With  the  exception  of  Violet,  whose 
paintings  have  been  of  an  imaginative  order,  all  the  drawings  and  paint- 
ings have  been  the  outcome  of  observations  and  feelings  with  respect  to 
the  real  world  surrounding  the  child.  .  .  .  Certain  of  the  children  have 
developed  a  decided  style,  in  particular  .  .  .  (seven  children  including 
Violet). 

Whether  or  no  it  be  argued  that  our  method  of  recording  can  be 
used  in  the  standard,  the  usual  public  school,  it  can  be  shown  that  even 
a  large  class  may  be  given  opportunities  to  study  socially,  to  work  out 
their  problems  together.  It  can  be  shown  that,  while  giving  her  class 
these  opportunities  and  while  observing  the  individual  responses  within 
the  group  activity,  a  teacher  will  understand  her  individuals  more  thor- 
oughly and  may  thereby  record  achievement  and  behavior  with  more 
accuracy  and  justice,  even  though  she  may  be  obliged  to  report  each 
child's  performance  in  formal  terms.  A  visiting-teacher,  who  had  been 
trying  to  persuade  the  teachers  of  a  public  school  to  adjust  the  school 
procedure  more  nearly  to  the  needs  of  several  girls  in  an  eighth  grade, 
offered  one  day  to  take  the  class  in  geography,  in  order  to  show  the  class 
teacher  how  these  girls  would  act  when  thrown  upon  their  own  initiative, 

[35] 


with  opportunity  to  discuss  and  compare  notes  with  other  girls,  and  with 
opportunity  also  to  use  the  knowledge  of  the  subject  which  they  had 
acquired  outside  of  school. 

The  teacher  had  complained  of  the  lack  of  interest  in  their  study  of 
Central  Europe.  All  these  girls  were  of  Central  European  descent,  and 
the  war  had  recently  begun.  The  teacher  of  geography  knew  of  their 
descent,  but  she  did  not  take  it  into  account.  The  visiting-teacher  took 
it  into  account,  and  when  she  assumed  charge  of  the  class  (as  a  demon- 
stration to  the  teacher)  she  talked  this  fact  over  with  the  girls  and  sug- 
gested that  many  would  have  a  good  deal  of  information  from  home  to 
contribute.  She  then  divided  the  girls  into  groups  as  they  sat,  from  four 
to  six  in  a  group,  and  gave  them  a  common  problem  to  work  out.  Each 
group  was  directed  to  discuss,  confer  and  pool  their  information,  whether 
gained  from  the  text-book  or  from  home. 

There  was  no  confusion  in  the  classroom ;  the  geography  teacher 
moved  about  and  watched  individuals  who  had  given  her  trouble  with 
especial  interest.  She  had  time  to  do  this  because  she  was  not  conducting 
a  recitation;  she  was  not  engaged  as  usual  in  discipling  idly  listening 
girls  while  only  one  was  reciting.  Very  few  out  of  the  forty-five  girls 
were  idle,  and  these  few  disturbed  nobody  because  the  others  were  too 
busy.  When  the  groups  were  called  upon  to  report,  the  formerly  trouble- 
some girls  showed  up  remarkably  well.  "I  thought  of  them  as  so  trou- 
blesome that  I  never  found  out  what  they  really  knew,"  said  their 
teacher. 

This  teacher  realized  that  she  had  learned  more  about  her  girls  when 
she  had  given  them  an  opportunity  to  work  together.  She  herself  had 
had  a  new  experience  in  observing.  She  had  seen  what  an  entirely  prac- 
ticable change  in  the  classroom  environment  would  do,  to  produce  in 
certain  girls  a  greatly  accelerated  process  of  learning  what  she  wished 
them  to  learn.  She  would  probably  have  no  time  to  make  concrete 
records  of  such  lessons,  but  if  she  could  keep  up  this  method  of  observing 
the  girls  while  they  were  working  in  groups  she  would  have  a  much  more 
accurate  basis  for  estimating  which  of  the  required  A,  B,  C,  or  D  marks 
for  scholarship  she  should  enter  in  their  monthly  reports.  And  she  would 
also  have  a  more  accurate  basis  for  answering  that  common  and  very 
puzzling  question,  "Should  Anna's  greater  willingness  to  do  her  work 
make  her  conduct  mark  higher  this  month,  or  should  it  add  to  the  schol- 
arship mark?" 


[361 


TECHNIQUE  OF  RECORDING 

Our  method  of  recording  calls  for  a  new  habit  of  observing  children. 
New  methods  of  teaching  will  follow  these  new  ways  of  considering 
children ;  but  this  report  is  a  record  of  an  experiment  in  recording  and 
must  not  discuss  methods  of  teaching,  except  in  relation  to  the  observa- 
tion and  recording  of  children's  activities.  The  last  illustration  in  the 
preceding  section  showed  a  class  studying  with  more  than  their  usual 
interest.  This  energy  did  not  arise  merely  because  the  girls  were  set 
"free"  of  their  habitual  classroom  restraint  of  passive  listening.  Their 
interest  and  energy  were  aroused  by  the  stimulus  of  sharing  in  a  group 
activity.  A  teacher  who  gives  her  children  opportunities  to  be  "free"  in 
their  reactions  to  the  environment,  has  far  more  to  do  and  far  more  to 
observe  than  the  teacher  who  carries  out  a  predetermined  recitation.  She 
must  be  ready  to  act  at  any  moment,  to  divert,  to  direct,  to  suggest,  in 
order  that  the  environment  shall  function  adequately;  she  must  be  ready 
to  change  or  to  add  to  the  environment  when  need  is  shown. 

A  teacher  who  wishes  to  record  by  our  method  must  develop  the 
habit  of  observing  children  working  together.  She  must  learn  to  recog- 
nize what  sort  of  contribution  each  child  makes  to  the  group  and  how 
he  makes  it.  She  cannot  record  everything,  nor  can  she  always  tell  what 
is  of  most  significance,  but  she  can  make  tentative  notes  for  her  own  use, 
leaving  the  sifting  of  evidence  to  a  summary  later.  A  teacher  will  find 
that  the  making  of  summaries  will  help  to  point  up  her  observing.  One 
teacher  wrote,  "A  new  feature  in  block  building  this  week  has  been  the 
fine  cooperation  displayed.  *  *  *  Marion  was  the  only  child  to 
build  alone."  This  teacher  had  been  observing  group  activities;  Marion 
had  not  changed  with  the  group,  and  the  teacher's  note  emphasized  this 
fact  in  her  weekly  summary.  There  it  will  stand  as  a  point  needing 
attention,  further  observation  and  perhaps  action. 

The  director  of  the  City  and  Country  School  visited  a  class  of  five- 
year-olds  and  handed  the  teacher  the  following  notes  about  their  yard- 
play  with  the  big  blocks: 

The  best  contributions  during  their  construction  (of  a  "fire  engine") 
were  from  O.,  A.,  B.  and  Tim.  Tim  had  most  information  but  he  could 
not  get  it  over  to  the  others  .  .  .  seemed  more  interested  in  what  he 
knew  than  in  ways  of  carrying  it  out.  .   .    . 

These  notes  are  valuable  to  a  teacher  only  as  points  of  departure. 
If  she  includes  them  in  her  summary  (at  the  end  of  the  week  or  other 
length  of  time)  she  does  so  in  order  to  follow  up  with  further  observing 
and  action  until  she  has  progress  or  the  lack  of  it  to  record. 

[37  1 

4  87  f >  3 


Skill  in  our  method  of  recording  depends  upon  how  well  a  teacher 
follows  our  standards  of  observing  children's  activities.  She  must  observe 
the  children's  progress  in  ability  to  use  their  environment;  she  must  ob- 
serve this  environment  to  see  whether  each  child  uses  it,  whether  it 
actually  functions  in  experience  for  him.  She  observes  the  children's 
growth,  and  their  school  experiences,  in  order  to  criticize  the  school  en- 
vironment,— to  test  the  curriculum.  She  records  these  observations  so 
that  she  may  have  concrete  evidence  of  each  child's  processes  of  growth 
in  order  that  her  criticisms  may  have  a  reliable  basis  for  making  changes 
in  the  environment  to  fit  the  children  as  they  grow  and  change. 

Many  teachers  have  to  teach  themselves  to  give  up  the  habit  of 
criticizing  the  children  and  asking  them  to  change,  before  they  can  de- 
velop the  habit  of  criticizing  and  changing  the  environment.  A  teacher 
made  long  detailed  notes  of  a  little  girl's  dominating  personality  and  her 
influence  in  the  group.  She  affected  the  environment,  but  the  notes  did 
not  indicate  that  the  environment,  including  the  teacher,  had  made  much 
change  in  her.  Was  this  due  to  the  teacher's  method  of  observing  or 
was  her  recording  at  fault?  The  next  teacher's  record  was  clear.  It 
showed  that  changes  in  the  environment  were  followed  by  changes  in  the 
child.  This  record  noted  that  specific  action  by  the  teacher  diverted  and 
controlled  Nancy  through  the  daily  group  activities.  The  child  was 
much  less  frequently  mentioned  in  the  notes  of  the  group,  and  though 
still  a  problem,  the  notes  clearly  indicated  her  wider  efficiency,  her  nar- 
rowed and  more  natural  dominance,  and  how  this  had  been  accomplished. 
This  was  a  record  which  will  be  of  great  value  to  her  next  teacher.  It 
was  also  reported  that  the  child  recognized  her  need  of  discipline  and 
enjoyed  her  own  greater  productiveness  under  it. 

March  7. — Shop.  .  .  .  Nancy  was  sent  out  for  misbehavior  on  Tues- 
day and  has  not  been  allowed  to  go  back  to  shop  since,  but  has  worked 
at  the  classroom  bench.  For  one  whole  hour  she  stuck  to  the  self-chosen 
task  of  cutting  out  a  round  table  top  with  a  circular  saw  and  finished 
the  table  next  day  to  her  great  satisfaction.  "If  I  had  been  in  the  shop 
I  wouldn't  have  got  it  done  so  quick.  I  would  have  been  thowing  shav- 
ings instead  of  working."  Nevertheless  she  is  eager  to  go  back  and  is 
trying  to  prove  to  me  that  she  can  be  trusted.   .    .    . 

Reports  of  this  kind  need  take  no  more  time  when  teachers  become 
skillful  than  the  ordinary  percentages  do  in  the  hands  of  conscientious 
teachers  who  vainly  struggle  to  calculate  justly.  Our  recording  takes 
less  time  than  the  elaborate  character  studies  which  some  schools  are 
substituting  for  percentages.  "Percents"  do  not  indicate  what  should  be 
done  and   personal  character  studies  omit  much  of  the  environmental 

(38  1 


situations  or  are  too  elaborate  for  practical  use.  Records  which  are  not 
used  are  a  serious  waste  of  a  teacher's  energy. 

Teachers  who  expect  to  share  in  making  changes  in  the  school  en- 
vironment will  have  to  keep  systematic  concrete  notes  if  their  share  is  to 
be  effective,  if  it  is  to  carry  weight  and  avoid  the  confusion  of  confer- 
ences where  discussion  is  based  upon  uncoordinated,  vaguely  remembered 
or  inaccurate  facts.  Beginnings  of  new  activities  must  be  clearly  stated, 
enough  notes  kept  to  show  continuity  and  progress,  and  these  must  be 
looked  over  and  organized  into  summaries  upon  which  the  teacher  will 
base  her  judgments  and  make  her  recommendations.  We  cannot  declare 
that  a  teacher  who  takes  poor  notes  or  no  notes  is  a  poor  teacher;  but 
we  do  say  that  a  teacher  who  is  aware  of  what  she  is  doing  and  of  the 
significance  of  what  the  children  are  doing,  makes  a  good  recorder  of 
material  which  will  be  useful  to  herself,  to  her  school  and  to  other 
schools ;  and  we  also  say  that  a  good  recorder  makes  a  better  teacher  than 
if  she  took  no  notes. 

A  teacher  does  not  need  to  note  all  the  detailed  variations  of  each 
child's  progress  each  day.  This  is  not  only  an  impossible  task  but  it 
obscures  the  teacher's  vision ;  she  is  not  seeing  the  tree,  she  is  only  count- 
ing the  leaves.  She  would  better  take  no  notes  at  all,  but  take  time  to 
watch  for  significant  relationships,  for  processes  of  learning.  When  a 
teacher  gets  into  the  habit  of  watching  how  the  children  gain  from  day 
to  day,  what  brings  about  this  progress, — not  the  quantity  they  memo- 
rize but  the  way  of  their  growth, — she  will  not  be  willing  to  work  with- 
out taking  notes,  because  she  will  know  that  only  so  will  she  catch  what 
takes  place,  will  she  see  how  irregularly  continuous  the  process  of  growth 
is,  and  with  the  help  of  her  notes  be  able  to  make  use  of  what  she  sees 
to  control  the  children's  environment. 

Teachers  should  have  some  experience  in  recording  children's  activi- 
ties before  they  are  given  the  entire  responsibility  of  a  class  of  children. 
Experience  in  recording  is  experience  in  seeing;  it  is  experience  in  recog- 
nizing originality  and  initiative ;  in  distinguishing  between  what  is 
directly  suggested  by  the  teacher  and  what  spontaneous  responses  and 
inquiries  the  environment  has  called  forth.  Whether  a  student  expects 
to  teach  in  a  formal  or  an  informal  school,  systematic  note-taking  of  a 
practical  kind  (which  she  or  a  teacher  expects  to  use)  is  training  which 
she  is  unlikely  to  acquire  in  any  other  way, — it  is  laboratory  work  in 
pedagogy. 

Skill,  and  consequently  practice,  is  called  for  in  the  making  of  rec- 
ords which  undertake  to  give  the  school,  and  the  next  teacher  of  a  class, 
a  clear  idea  of  what  and  how  the  children  have  been  learning.     Notes 

[39] 


must  be  brief  and  to  the  point  or  they  will  be  too  much  of  a  burden  to 
the  writer  and  not  useful  to  the  reader.  Until  teachers  acquire  skill  in 
recording,  they  need  supervision  and  following  up  to  see  that  each  teacher 
pulls  her  notes  together,  that  each  record  of  the  year's  work  shows  con- 
tinuity within  itself  and  also  shows  relationship  and  progress  from  the 
year  before.  The  organization  of  notes  adopted  by  a  school  must  be 
determined,  as  has  been  said  before,  by  the  organization  of  that  school's 
procedure, — and  by  what  use  the  school  expects  to  make  of  its  record. 
An  outline  proposed  for  one  school  might  quite  fail  to  be  useful  to 
another  school. 

There  are  however  two  essentials  without  which  no  school  report  is 
worth  making.  First,  a  teacher  who  makes  an  observation  which  she 
believes  is  important  enough  to  enter  in  her  record  must  follow  up  this 
statement  by  further  observations  and  notes.  An  isolated  observation  is 
of  no  account  until  it  is  continued  by  further  observations.  It  may  be 
crossed  out  of  her  rough  notes  and  left  out  of  her  permanent  summary 
entirely,  but  if  put  in  it  must  be  followed  up.  Second,  a  teacher  must 
be  able  to  distinguish  between  what  is,  and  what  is  not,  evidence  in  regard 
to  her  conclusions  concerning  her  children,  and  the  environment  she  pro- 
vides for  them.  Opinions  are  not  evidence,  nor  are  phrases  characteriz- 
ing the  children,  unless  they  are  supported  by  concrete  illustrations. 
These  illustrations,  in  order  to  be  good  evidence,  must  illustrate  the  point 
at  issue.  This  has  the  sound  of  truism,  but  teachers  and  parents,  in  fact 
everybody  concerned  with  children,  have  a  traditional  habit  of  judging 
children  not  by  the  concrete  evidence  but  by  what  they  think  children 
ought  to  do  and  be. 

Fol  low-Up 

Following  up  is  a  habit  it  is  necessary  for  a  teacher  to  learn  if  her 
notes  are  kept  for  practical  use.  Following  up  a  subject  that  has  been 
mentioned,  or  a  statement  that  has  been  made  tentatively,  requires  a  re- 
reading of  old  notes.  But  no  teacher  can  afford  for  the  sake  of  her  teach- 
ing to  do  anything  else.  She  cannot  trust  to  her  memory,  and  she  is 
teaching  thoughtlessly  if  she  lets  each  day's  procedure  depend  upon  what 
conies  up  or  upon  what  she  remembers  of  the  past.  If  she  wishes  to 
share  in  making  changes,  if  she  wishes  to  be  responsible  for  her  own  pro- 
cedure, she  must  take  some  sort  of  continuous  notes.  Two  teachers  using 
the  same  yard  and  equipment  made  a  full  report  of  the  children's  use  of 
some  new  heavy  blocks.  A  third  teacher  did  not  mention  these  blocks 
at  all  in  her  notes, — yet  it  was  of  just  as  much  importance  to  the  school 
to  know  how  her  children  used  this  new  material  as  to  know  how  the 
other  classes  did. 

(401 


When  a  teacher  takes  notes  of  what  she  wishes  to  remember  and 
use,  she  is  likely  to  give  information  which  another  teacher  will  find 
useful.  When  note-taking  is  perfunctory,  it  is  of  no  use  to  others.  A 
teacher  wrote,  "The  children  evolved  a  self-directing  system  *  *  * 
for  going  downstairs  at  lunch  time."  She  did  not  mention  what  this 
system  was,  nor  how  the  children  carried  it  out;  she  did  not  mention  it 
again  at  all.  Why  did  she  note  it  in  the  first  place?  If  it  was  worth 
mentioning  at  all  it  was  worth  explanation ;  if  it  did  not  function,  this 
was  worth  mentioning.  On  the  other  hand,  specific  questions  concerning 
an  absence  of  functioning,  even  if  the  teacher  never  discovers  a  satisfac- 
tory answer,  are  of  great  value.  "My  children  use  the  sandbox  so  little. 
Is  it  worth  while  to  have  it  at  all?"  was  a  question  of  practical  value  to 
the  school  and  to  the  next  teacher. 

A  teacher's  failures,  and  the  children's,  are  often  more  illuminating 
than  successes  and  call  for  as  full  reporting.  They  are  even  more  im- 
portant to  follow  up  with  statements  of  outcome  and  of  changes  which 
brought  success.  But  it  is  neither  success  nor  failure  which  are  of  them- 
selves important, — they  are  parts  of  the  process  of  learning,  incidents. 
It  is  the  flow  of  progress,  with  its  ups  and  downs,  its  variations,  which 
tell  the  story. 

Week  of  May  2. — Four-year-old  group.  Block  building.  Marion  was 
the  only  child  to  build  alone,  but  when  Henry  began  a  track  on  Thurs- 
day, he  said,  "I  want  somebody  to  build  with  me,"  and  Marion,  putting 
away  her  own  blocks,  joined  him.   .    .    . 

This  summary  would  have  been  worth  nothing  by  itself.  Preceding 
notes  indicated  a  different  social  activity,  and  the  weeks  that  followed 
showed  variations.  This  teacher  reported  progress  in  building  together, 
week  by  week,  and  how  she  herself  helped. 

Week  of  May  9. — Interest  in  building  together  strong  this  week. 
Henry  and  Marion  began  a  track  on  Monday,  and  were  soon  joined  by 
Thomas.  .  .  .  The  two  boys  were  better  able  to  cooperate  than  Marion. 
...   I  did  not  want  her  to  be  discouraged,  so  I  suggested  that  .    .    . 

It  is  during  the  re-reading  of  her  rough  notes  to  make  a  summary, 
such  as  the  above,  that  a  teacher  organizes,  readjusts  her  previous  evalua- 
tions and  makes  plans  anew.  It  is  this  summarizing  which  is  of  educa- 
tional value  to  her,  which  helps  to  make  clear  to  her  how  the  environment 
has  functioned,  and  what  experiences  she  should  encourage. 

Evidence 

The  mental  notes  which  a  teacher  makes  will  be  endless  in  quantity ; 
her  written  notes  may  be  few  or  many  according  to  need  and  skill.  These 

[41  ] 


notes  will  be  valuable  just  in  so  far  as  she  has  taught  herself  to  discrimi- 
nate between  an  opinion  she  wishes  to  hold  and  the  actual  evidence.  She 
takes  notes  because  she  wishes  to  use  them ;  she  wishes  to  have  something 
other  than  remembered  facts  as  a  basis  for  making  her  more  important 
changes  in  curriculum  or  in  her  procedure.  Her  decisions  to  make 
changes  or  to  take  specific  action  must  be  based  upon  an  accumulated 
body  of  occurrences  of  the  same  kind.  She  makes  decisions  because,  "B. 
has  acted  thus  every  time  so  and  so  has  occurred,"  or,  "It  is  only  when 
I  arrange  such  and  such  a  situation  that  the  children  respond  as  I  want 
them  to."  The  writer  of  these  notes  may  be  mistaken  in  what  she  wishes 
to  bring  about,  but  at  any  rate  she  will  be  learning  to  know  what  she  is 
doing,  because  she  is  collecting  real  evidence  concerning  the  effect  of  the 
environment.  "The  children  ought  to  .  .  .,"  or  "Anne  should  feel 
sorry  but  .  .  ."  are  not  evidence.  "R.  seems  listless  part  of  the 
time  and  at  others  is  inclined  to  be  mischievous.  He  still  has  a  bad  cold 
and  this  may  be  partly  the  cause."  As  rough  notes  to  be  followed  up 
by  more  specific  evidence  these  may  be  good  enough.  But  "seems"  and 
"may  be"  are  terms  a  teacher  should  avoid.  Listlessness  is  a  visible 
manifestation,  and  she  could  use  "is  listless"  with  accuracy.  The  second 
sentence  would  be  much  stronger  if  asked  as  a  question,  "Is  his  bad  cold 
the  cause?"  and  would  imply  an  intention  of  following  up.  "Evidently" 
is  another  word  that  is  worthless  unless  the  teacher  is  in  possession  of  the 
facts.  The  following  is  good  evidence  because  it  was  a  summary  of  many 
observed  incidents  of  the  same  kind : 

January  14  was  cold  and  windy.  This  kind  of  weather  evidently 
affects  the  type  of  yard  play;  either  it  is  of  the  monkey-shine  type,  tossing 
each  other's  hats  and  chasing  each  other,  or  else  the  activity  slows  down 
and  complaints  of  being  cold  are  made,  and  I  have  to  enter  in  with  sug- 
gestions, a  thing  I  have  not  had  to  do  for  many  weeks. 

Another  teacher's  notes  upon  two  children  are  in  strong  contrast 
with  each  other  as  evidence.  Her  first  note  is  valueless  because  it  gives 
no  evidence  for  her  conjectures.  The  second  is  a  statement  of  the  facts 
in  the  case,  and  no  inference  is  drawn  unless  one  is  implied  by  the  last 
sentence. 

Albert  was  willing  to  try  this  today,  although  the  other  day  he  re- 
fused to;  but  either  his  circulation  is  not  so  easily  started,  or  else  his 
spirits  are  too  easily  depressed. 

The  children  were  very  quiet  and  interest  was  sustained  in  their 
own  plans  for  activity  without  suggestions  from  me  up  to  11:45,  with  the 
possible  exception  of  Max,  who  was  inclined  to  be  pugnacious  and  fretful. 
Me  has  a  cold. 

[421 


A  mother  who  was  also  a  teacher,  a  specialist  in  a  science,  told 
another  teacher,  "Baby  sees  a  long  distance.  She  really  recognizes  that 
church  on  the  hill.  Whenever  I  ask  'Where  is  the  church?'  she  points 
to  it."  A  few  days  later  at  the  dinner  table,  the  mother  asked,  "Baby, 
where  is  .  .  .?"  The  mother  mentioned  this  person  and  that  and 
the  baby  pointed  until  one  was  named  whom  she  refused  to  point  to. 
"Ah,  little  baby,  that  is  too  far  away,  isn't  it?"  This  mother  had  no 
real  evidence  that  the  baby  recognized  or  was  pointing  to  the  distant 
church,  nor  had  she  any  ground  for  making  the  contradictory  statement 
that  the  baby  could  not  see  far  enough  to  recognize  some  one  across  the 
table.  Although  an  accredited  specialist  in  a  science,  this  teacher  had 
no  sense  of  what  constitutes  evidence.  Her  statements  about  her  pupils 
in  school  were  as  inaccurate  as  about  her  baby  at  home, — they  were  col- 
ored by  the  requirements  of  the  moment,  they  could  never  be  relied  upon 
as  evidence. 

A  teacher  who  was  a  keen  observer  of  children's  activities,  made  so 
few  notes  of  her  own  share  in  promoting  these  activities  that  her  weekly 
summaries  were  very  incomplete  as  histories.  After  giving  weeks  of  dis- 
criminating assistance  and  encouragement  to  the  one  child  of  her  three- 
year-old  group  who  was  still  afraid  of  the  slide,  she  succeeded  in  over- 
coming his  fear,  and  he  let  himself  go  down.  She  had  noted  his  reactions, 
but  her  own  way  of  meeting  them,  without  which  the  child  would  have 
done  nothing,  was  not  mentioned.  Her  note  of  his  victory,  in  which 
she  played  an  active  though  unmentioned  part,  was: 

On  Friday  John  for  the  first  time  went  down  the  slide  alone.  He 
was  beside  himself  with  ecstacy,  jumped  around  like  a  clown  on  the 
pebbles,  telling  everyone  to  watch  him,  and  he  proudly  repeated  his  per- 
formance many  times  for  his  mother  when  she  came  for  him  at  noon. 

The  December  summary  of  a  teacher  of  eight-year-old  children,  on 
the  contrary,  stated  her  own  purpose  and  efforts,  but  not  what  the  chil- 
dren got  out  of  the  environment  which  she  set  up.  She  set  up  standards, 
but  she  did  not  tell  whether  they  were  effective;  she  did  not  follow  up 
her  statement  of  purpose  with  any  responses  of  the  children.  This  is  a 
type  of  report  which  many  superintendents  feel  obliged  to  be  satisfied 
with,  yet  it  tells  nothing  at  all. 

The  general  work  so  far  has  been  standardizing,  that  is  giving  the 
children  something  to  measure  themselves  by.  In  behavior  the  ideals 
have  been  set  of  moving  quietly  .  .  .,  leaving  other  children  alone  except 
when  help  is  possible  and  deserved.   .   .    . 

A  teacher's  record  of  school  functioning  must  report  the  essential 
related  facts  of  functioning, — the  interaction  of  environment  and  chil- 

[43] 


dren.  Teachers  who  are  content  to  follow  a  dictated  course  of  study  are 
not  the  teachers  who  are  in  question  here.  This  discussion  of  our  experi- 
ment in  recording  is  meant  for  those  teachers  who  wish  to  share  in  the 
changes  in  curriculum  which  any  progressive  school  finds  necessary  to 
make  from  time  to  time.  It  is  meant  for  teachers  who  are  willing  to 
take  the  time  to  record  those  concrete  facts  which  are  necessary  as  evi- 
dence of  the  changes  that  should  be  made,  in  order  that  their  curriculum 
shall  continue  to  function  adequately  for  their  pupils'  growth.  When  a 
school  manages  its  record-making  with  skill,  when  it  uses  an  organization 
of  material  appropriate  to  its  purposes,  when  it  gives  its  teachers  time 
to  re-read  and  summarize,  the  records  so  made  will  be  invaluable  to  the 
school  itself.    They  will  be  valuable  to  other  schools  also. 

A  year's  record  of  a  group  of  six-year-old  children  has  recently  been 
published  by  the  City  and  Country  School.*  This  record  was  made  by 
the  class  teacher,  Miss  Leila  Stott,  to  show  "the  school  as  it  functioned 
through  the  children."  Many  such  records  of  actual  experiences  in  many 
schools  may  some  day  provide  us  with  a  body  of  reliable  evidence  con- 
cerning the  functioning  of  different  kinds  of  school  environment.  At 
present  we  are  uninformed  concerning  school  functioning;  we  are  still 
guessing  when  we  sit  down  to  plan  a  school  curriculum. 

Mary  S.  Marot. 


SOUTHERN  BRANCH, 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA, 

LIBRARY, 
i-OS  ANGELES,  CALIF. 


•  Op.  cit.  p.  5. 


[44 


